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ANDREW YOUNG OF SI

OF SHENSI

BY THE SAME AUTHOR,

IN CHINA NOW.

THE PASSING OF THE
DRAGON.

ANDREW- YOUNG

ADVENTURE IN
MEDICAL MISSIONS

BY

J. C. KEYTE

LONDON :

THE CAREY PRESS

19, FURNIVAL STREET

BV 34-2-7

. / . \/ '

TO

THE MEMORY OF TWO GALLANT GENTLEMEN
H. STANLEY JENKINS, M.D., F.R.C.S.,

AND

CECIL F. ROBERTSON, M.B., F.R.C.S.,

Whose passion it was to preach the Gospel of
Jesus Christ ; whose privilege it was, in His
Name, to relieve the suffering ; and who, in
prosecuting their labour of love, laid down their
lives in Sianfu in the year of our Lord
nineteen hundred and thirteen.

746251

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

THE justification for such a volume as the present is to
be found in the belief that " the fine is not the abnormal,
it is the usual." The thought of any book written
around his life being the glorification of the subject
would have distressed Andrew Young greatly, but to
its publication he might have at least resigned himself
if from a perusal of his story the reader could gather a
truer idea of the aims underlying the medical missionary
enterprise.

The subject of this biography has points of temperament
and areas of experience peculiar to himself, yet it is as he
is representative that he is most valuable ; and whilst
many missionaries fall short of the standard at which
he arrived, the reader can yet rest assured that the
values in conduct which appear in the pages which
follow are not peculiar to this missionary alone. Mission-
aries' faults there are in plenty, easily discovered and
described, but the virtues are there also, and, both for
the student as well as for the critic of missions, a little
honest research in this latter direction will not be time
wasted.

The above gives the clue to the method of this volume.
The first part, treating as it does of the Victorian
'nineties, cannot pretend to be interpretative of African
Missions : it is written to reveal the stature of the man,
and to trace his course from the medical amateur to the
trained medical missionary. The second and third por-
tions of the book attempt a picture of medical missionary

vi AUTHOR'S PREFACE

work in Inland China, the scientific side of which has
been presented by Dr. Balme in his book, " Medicine
and Modern China " a volume which is a vade-mecum
to be consulted by medical missionary officers and their
supporters in viewing the whole general problem. The
approach here is not from the general aspect but from
a particular instance. In considering the life work of
Andrew Young the reader is brought to the contemplation
of the medical problem in a single province of China in
the belief that he who arrives at an understanding of
the needs of one province will be advanced in sympathy
towards the larger need, medical and otherwise, of the
country as a whole.

No apology therefore is made for the general picture
here given of the Shensi Mission, of the growth of the
Sianfu Hospital, or for such a section as that in Chapter
Eight, upon " The Horse, the Magistrate, the Gate-
keeper and the ' Lao T'ai-t'ai,' " a section which, whilst
true of Andrew Young, is also a key to medical missionary
experience generally.

One convention is frankly discarded. My intimate
connection with the Shensi Mission and the Sianfu
Hospital have been so prolonged that in referring to
them I have, on occasion, written frankly in the first
person.

Where quotation marks are used with no reference
given the extracts are from Dr. Young's letters ; where
the initials " C. M. Y." are added, the writer is Mrs.
Andrew Young (Charlotte Murdoch Young).

Some inaccuracies may have crept into the narrative
owing to the long interval between the events and this
record. But most of the chapters have been submitted
to others in order to minimize error. Almost the entire
manuscript has been through the hands of Mrs. Young,

AUTHOR'S PREFACE vii

apart from whose generous confidence in allowing me
access to correspondence spread over many years, as
well as to her own dictated impressions, this book could
not have been written. To friends in China, Mrs. H.
Beckett and Mr. E. Cormack in Peking, and the Reverend
John Bell in Shensi, grateful thanks are due for unstinted
help and valuable criticism. To my friend, Dr.
R. Fletcher Moorshead, the Secretary of the Medical
Auxiliary of the Baptist Missionary Society, I am indebted
for much help and encouragement during the preparation
of the volume.

And finally, if for no other reason than that it is the
fitting opportunity to record my Prepayable debt to
Andrew Young and to the two brave men to whose
memory this tribute is dedicated, the writing of the
book has been abundantly worth the effort it has
entailed.

J. C, KBYTE.
Peking, 1924.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PREFACE ......... V

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER : THE HILL AND THE PLAIN - xi

PART L IN CONGO'S FREE STATE.

I (JETTING BEADY ....... 17

II PROM TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR - 37

III TEACHING, PREACHING AND HEALING 83

PART II. IN CHINA'S EMPIRE.

IV EASTWARD HO ! ....... 109

V A MEMBER OF THE MISSION ..... 124

VI THE MAKING OF A HOME - - - - - - 138

VII THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY ..... - 147

VIII THE DOCTOR, THE MISSION AND THE WORLD AT LARGE - 189

IX REINFORCEMENTS AND REMOVALS - ... 213

PART III. IN CHINA'S REPUBLIC.

X THE DRAMATIC YEAR : (1) HUNTED ON THE HILLS - 227

XI THE DRAMATIC YEAR : (2) TOILING IN THE PLAINS - 249

XII THE GROWTH OF A SOUL ...... 269

XIII IN THE JENKINS-ROBERTSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL - 294

XIV THE SHINING YEAR ....... 303

ix

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

The Hill and the Plain

WRITING these lines on the Western Hills near Peking,
with Andrew Young's life and work in mind, I am struck
afresh with the significance of these missionary hill
retreats in China. There was a crazy little shack I knew
on the Shensi hills near Sianfu, there is a cottage on a
Shantung hill near Tsinanfu, there are the temple quarters
and cottages here near the Pa Ta Chu, and one feature is
common to them all : though they are high above the
scene of the missionary's work, their face is still towards
it ; they are not over the crest of the ridge looking into
another world, their view is of the plain where the work
lies. Some of us who are restless, roving souls ask for
new fields and scenes clear of the routine's memories,
but they who, like Andrew Young, came once for all to
their haven in the certitude of a great calling, ask only
for a little space of quiet on the heights above the plain ;
the plain which, with all it represents, aids rather than
impedes their recuperation of spirit. God's breezes
murmur through the pine trees under which His servant
rests awhile; God's children move to and fro on the
plain stretched out below. And presently the disciple
descends the hill once more and gets him to the place of
service which is become anew the place of sanctuary, the
sight of which he has never lost.

xii INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

It was to a place in the hills that, in 1912, there went
out from Sianfu one of two surgeons who had laboured
in the city and whom the city that day claimed as its
own. He was a man whose taste was all for the quiet,
unmarked places in life's procession. And on that day
he would fain have slipped out of the city quietly to
make his way to the hills. But by the Gate of the city
there had gathered all that was representative of the
city's life : rich and poor, strong and weak, old and
young, Christian and Confucian, soldier and civilian, to
do honour to a man whom they loved and trusted. And
at the Gate they stayed his progress that he might know
their mind. Over his shoulders and around his waist
they wound a scarf of red silk, and whilst the bands
played and the generals saluted, they took him formally
into a fellowship which he had already made his own by
countless deeds of self-forgetful service. Quite what
was wrapped up in this symbol of " The Elder Brother
Society," the " Ko Lao Hui " secret society which
dominated the army and councils of Shensi Province at
that time we do not know and had perhaps better not
ask. But by the Gate of Sianfu that day the simple
ritual represented only gratitude and a whole-hearted
belief in two men's gift for " brotherhood." At a later
date the recognized Government in Peking might send
orders and decorations for these two surgeons from
overseas, but for them this was the supreme, the dramatic
hour, when at the Gateway of a one-time capital of the
Chinese Empire they had placed upon them the token of
the city's faith and gratitude.

Of these two men, one, Cecil Robertson, remained for
the time being in the city ; the other, Andrew Young,
made for the hills. In the chapters which follow we see
that quiet, steadfast, kindly figure finding its way from

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER xiii

Scottish lowlands to forests of Africa and plains of Asia,
on the caravan routes of Congo and the cart-roads of
China, in hospital wards and on tented fields, in perils
oft and in labours always ; yet never, perhaps, in a scene
more significant than that by the Sian gate. For the
Gate represented in his life not the recognition which
was unsought and unwelcomed, but the right of entry so
hardly won into hearts and lives, that comes surely, if
very slowly, to those men and women who, in the name
of Jesus, live to serve. And of such was Andrew Young.
From the Gate he went to the Hill for the renewed
Vision, and from the Hill he returned to the Gate and
the renewed Service.

PART I
IN CONGO'S FREE STATE

ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

CHAPTER I

Getting Ready

ANDREW YOUNG must have been a delightful boy. He
had a strong physique, an unusual power of self-effacement
and an unfailing sense of humour. The combination
made him a thoroughly comfortable person to live with
and meant that, just as in later years he was willing to
take his share in united effort so, as a boy, he could be
depended upon for team games and the give and take of
a Saturday afternoon ramble.

Though town bred he was country born at a moorland
farm at Crossdykes, in Hutton and Corrie, the parish
next to Eskdalemuir itself; that innermost shrine of
the old Covenanter spirit. Though the bitterness of those
old, sad days of heroic struggle found no place in so
sweet a nature as that of Andrew Young, the steadfast-
ness of the old loyalty was in him reincarnate. Incident-
ally, it is typical of the shy reserve that clung to the
man, as the scent of lavender clings to some fine and
old-world fabric, that though I had known him so well
and on many themes had talked at length, and though
in full view on the shelf for him to see stood
Smellie's great book, " Men of the Covenant," a book
he' read so often, he never, so far as I can recollect,

17 B

18 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

told me of what Smellie was to him, or how deeply
his own roots went down into that historic ground by
Eskdalemuir. He had a remarkable talent for silence.

George Young and his wife Hannah (whose maiden
name was Armstrong) brought their boy of three years
to Langholm in 1872. A centre of the famous tweed
cloth industry, Langholm offered opportunities to men of
enterprise whom the land supported ill, and immigration
to the town from the country districts was a regular
feature of Dumfriesshire life. For fifteen years Andrew
Young received in Langholm the varied training which
is given to any one who is not a fool and who lives in
the pulsating microcosm of a country town which is
large enough for a civic consciousness and not too large
for observation of character. The parish church, the
U.F. kirks, the school, the library, and the famous mills
gave the town a full and varied life. And, it was ex-
tremely Scotch. For vivid Scottish consciousness one
goes neither to Edinburgh nor Braemar ; not even to
Aberdeen ; but to the lowlanders of the Border country,
who are so keenly aware of what they have just, and
only just escaped, viz., being born south of the Tweed.
And Langholm is only twenty miles north of Carlisle.

Of the many factors of his Langholm life there were
three for which Andrew Young was ever thankful : his
home, his church, and his school.

The eldest son of a family can be a sore trial to the
young fry that come after him, and a weary problem to
his parents. On the other hand, he may be such a
genuine friend and leader to his younger brothers and
sisters that the parents find their work wonderfully
simplified by the work of a liaison officer, who is him-
self in the camp of the juniors' light infantry but has
yet some appreciation of the problems of the family

GETTING READY 19

head-quarters' staff. Christina, Jamie, Janet, Archie, and
John were the friends as well as relatives of Andrew.
Moreover they provided him with the opportunity of
helping the father and mother who, for him, were
saints whom to serve was joy.

The church was the North United Free Church, where
his father worshipped in 1872. George Young was one
of those remarkable men who, more even than her
devoted and scholarly clergy, have made the United
Free Church of Scotland what she is to-day. He became
a member of the church in 1873, and was ordained an
elder in 1882. To be an elder was no light matter. It
involved a considerable amount of public speaking,
religious visitation, prayer in the homes thus visited,
especially in the distressing conditions of sickness and
sorrow. It meant, further, the jealous maintenance of
a high standard of honour in the public conduct of church
affairs. In 1891 he was appointed session-clerk, and
held that office until 1903. His Sunday School teaching
entailed careful preparation. In addition, he was one
of the founders of the Home Mission and a hard-working
member of the Y.M.C.A., taking his spiritual responsi-
bilities in connection with the Association very seriously.
And this was no case of a man who neglected his daily
livelihood or the duties of his home in order to play a
prominent part on a public stage. He did his business
well and faithfully, whilst his home was a place of genuine
happiness and prosperity.

Great as the father was in character, the mother was
even greater. Much of her woman's abilities would go
unrecognized into the daily life of her husband, and the
fact that she was hailed as a worthy " help-meet," a
" second " to her husband, rather than given recognition
for herself, would trouble her not at all ; life was too

20 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

fine, too splendid, to worry over trivial questions of
precedence. There was a home to be turned into a
heaven, children to be made members of Christ, an
enterprise to be wrought only in the unity of the Spirit.
Love and gentleness, unwearying service, unwavering
faith, informed this gracious woman's nature. When
the children grew up and went out into the great cities, it
was she who, with her pen, week after week, kept vivid
before their minds the Christ-filled life which had drawn
them, whilst yet in Langholm, to the Christ himself.

It will be seen, therefore, that the question, " What
decided Andrew to give his life to Christ ? " is not diffi-
cult to answer. Given a naturally clean and thoughtful
disposition, given a clear-eyed faculty of tracking effects
to their causes, the time was bound to come when con-
sciously or unconsciously the lad would ask himself, how
much of the Christian explanation of life in which he
had been drilled since he could follow any reasoning at
all how much of it could he himself accept ? The
Bible he had heard read daily since he could remember
anything, Sunday School lessons and sermons had
always been his portion, prayer was a feature of home
life as constant as food taking. How far did these all
agree with actual experience ? Well was it for the boy
that to his bourgeoning soul no influence but the healthiest,
the most natural, was offered. To fit the religious theory
which he had learnt to the facts that faced him, was a
task left to the boy himself. He solved his problem by
watching the daily life of his father and mother. If
they had failed him his story might have been a very
different one. Upright, cleanly, kindly, I think he
would in any case have been, but instead of an explanation
of life which brought him daily joy and support, he
might have gone through life wistfully questioning ; a

GETTING READY 21

stoic who could only look to " the choir invisible of those
immortal dead who live again in minds made better by
their presence," for any hope beyond. He would in all
probability have been a useful citizen, " a good man,"
but he would not have found the door into that Secret
Garden in which he walked with his Lord. The doctors
in the Temple might have answered his questions, but
their answers would have left him lonely and in the
shadow. Joy and sunlight came to him in another
place in the home. Reading of Andrew Young's home
life one thinks of the words, so vivid as a bit of human
as well as divine history, which describe the boy Jesus
who returned from the Temple to Nazareth and was
subject to His parents, and so grew in wisdom and
stature and in favour with God and with man.

In these days of council schools and Carnegie Founda-
tions one is tempted to wonder if the old Scots dominie,
who laboured long and unselfishly over " the lad o'
pairts," is not merely a pleasant fiction serving the
delightful purposes of an Ian Maclaren, an Ian Hay or
Sir James Barrie. But for Andrew Young he was a
reality. It was an interesting group which gathered in
the Langholm Academy of those days. To English, as
distinguished from Scottish and American ears,
" Academy " has an unfortunate sound. It carries the
idea of the " genteel " and the inefficient. The word
bears the stamp of Mr. Squeers and Mr. Creakle. It is
" for young gentlemen " ; its teachers are ill paid and its
teaching is negligible. But in Scotland, " Watson's
Academy " is a name to conjure with. In America the
academy is equivalent to a good grammar school; and
it is as a good, well-staffed grammar school or council

22 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

school that the Langholm Academy presents itself fox
our consideration. As might be expected, it was a
nursery for the wider commonwealth of British nations.
Of the boys who sat on the back bench of the fourth form
class-room, one is to-day with a trading company in
Rhodesia, another lies buried in South America, Andrew
Young lived to work in Africa and Asia, whilst a fourth
member is master of a school of his own where he is
doubtless training more units for overseas drafts. And
this on one bench only of one class.

Sizing up these young hopefuls, searching for talent
to win a bursary, inspiring his assistant masters to
" bring them on," was a dominie with all the spirit of the
old school, though happily set in easier surroundings than
he of Drumtochty or Thrums. His name was Howie
a name which seems to fit the part and amongst the
group of boys whom he assembled into a preparation
class to struggle for the coveted Hannafield bursary he
found his " lad o' pairts " in Andrew Young. Mr. Howie
laboured : Andrew got his bursary.

Happily for himself and his future usefulness he got
much more than the bursary. He learned to be interested
in games and was quite a useful person in a scrum. He
made a few real friends. He learned also the difficult
art of saying " no " without censoriousness, of taking
up a difficult position without advertising his conscientious
objections. The immemorial order of the crib was
evidently not unknown even in the rarified atmosphere
of Langholm, but Andrew kept out of it. In no case
can one imagine him tempted to copy from others ;
what is really a remarkable achievement for a school-
boy was his refusal to supply answers to needy school-
fellows in their time of construe nakedness, and yet to
retain their boyish friendship and respect. The worst

GETTING READY 23

that happened to him was that Andrew was considered
"close". Close, not with cash he was ever over-
generous with that but with information. " He did
not give countenance to copying, and was rather close
when applied to for information by his school-fellows.
If Mr. Proudfoot fired a question at any of us and
Andrew was applied to, ' in a whisper,' for help, no
response was forthcoming." This perfectly delightful
passage is by one of the school-fellows who evidently
" applied for help " in the feeling manner described.
There was evidently no idea that Andrew was a prig,
nor any idea of persuading him forcibly in the play-
ground after class to act differently next time. For
one thing, Andrew Young was a wiry person who could
stand hard knocks, and also possessed a very useful pair
of hands of his own, and whilst intellectually he was
held to have the best head of the crowd he kept a first-class
place in athletics.

But school days hold more than games and classes.
There are Saturday afternoons, there are the long holidays
when boys have a chance of calling their souls their own.
Even in British schools where, in order that each boy
may conform to type, there is brought to bear so much
pressure unconscious pressure with an exasperating
assumption of cheerfulness in its tyranny' these holidays
give a boy some chance to develop his own individuality.
William Rae and Andrew Young were close friends as
well as class-mates, and when school bars fell before them
the world was theirs. Langholm is geographically some-
what isolated ; Hawick, Carlisle, Lockerbie and other
towns are all twenty miles or so distant. To see such
places the boys had to foot it. With some bread and
cheese in their pockets and a copper or so available for
a drink of milk at some roadside cottage, they went far.

24 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

Sometimes they would walk out twenty miles it is
pleasant to think that they even turned tolerant faces
to Carlisle, south of the border though it is and returned
by train. Sometimes they would tramp it both ways.
Forty miles a day, even for schoolboys in good condition,
is good going. Blistered feet would be attended to at
the first stream. " Andrew was good sustaining company
on those journeys," says William Rae, " and many a
prank we had with one another." How the words bring
back days in north-west China when a town had been
left behind and there was a clear track ahead and one
could let the well-fed Chinese ponies go for all they were
worth. Years after, writing from Congo, Andrew refers
to those long walks and also to his experience of children,
gained during his pupil-teachership the bursary winner
took that course for a time as unconscious preparation
for the work he had been called upon to do in Africa.

Langholm town happily possessed a good library.
The annual subscription was only three shillings, and for
this five volumes could be taken out at a time and kept
for a month. Kingston, Ballantyne, Cooper, Captain
Marryat, Mayne Reid, Henty, and Jules Verne were the
favourites for the two friends. There is a tree still
standing at the back of the Scholars' Field in which
three boys, of whom they were two, used to perch them-
selves with their treasure trove. As one book was
finished it was pitched across to a boy in another branch
whose exchange was caught deftly and plunged into
immediately. One hopes that apples, or butter-scotch,
or some such weakness was included in these feasts of
soul. " Golden days ! " cries one of the three, " when
the sun was always shining." Later on a wave of high-
brow resolve caught them and they considered the need
of reading the "great authors". One summer holiday

GETTING READY 25

a glorious six weeks Andrew actually proposed to Rae
that they should try a race through the Waverley
Novels forty-eight volumes. " We were to take a
note of character and incident as we went along for the
purposes of testing and proving one another. We didn't
finish that job though we broke the back of it.
What we did do was a very present help in future
examinations."

Text-books, real reading, football, tramping, a growing
mind and a glowing body ; life was all good. And life's
explanation ? Life's call ? He turned the questions over
in his thoughtful, honest fashion, and arrived at the
answer which lit up the world for him then and which
never failed him in the future years. There came a night
when the two friends stood on Langholm Bridge. For
some few days Andrew had been unusually quiet and
thoughtful. And since friendship cannot continue with-
out confidence, he very directly but very modestly began
to speak of the change that had been introduced into
his life, adding his conviction that it need not interfere
in any way with their usual recreations or with their
companionship. " And," adds his friend, more than
thirty years later, " it didn't. Even then there was a
certain manliness and an inherent integrity and strength
about him which made him amongst us an influence for
good. He was bright and cheerful as a rule, but there
was also a dreamy and absent-minded streak about him.
But he was frankness itself, and you always knew where
you had him." Those who knew the Andrew Young of
later life knew that " dreamy and absent-minded streak".
They knew that with all his comradely frankness, there
were times when the real man had slipped away into a
Secret Garden and, for a little while, the music of that
Garden had drawn his mind away from the clamour of

26 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

a prosaic world. He who can for a season thus take
leave of such clamour may well be counted happy.

The pupil-teacher of those days had, given the right
headmaster, a fine opportunity of consolidating work
already done as he taught his subjects to others, and
read for himself under wise direction. How to teach
is one of the arts most needed by a missionary on the
field. Most of us go out with our heads crammed with
such learning as we have been able to amass, sailing for
a foreign country with no experience of teaching, no
knowledge of teaching-method. And in a language and
culture alien to our own we essay to " teach the heathen ".
For what is preaching, if it is to be intelligent, but teach-
ing ? Twenty years ago the average theological student
who, in view of going to the mission field, asked for a year
in teaching-method in a teachers' college instead of, let
us say, advanced Hebrew or a course in the " Fathers ",
would probably have been told that a college syllabus
could not be altered to suit individual cases. Happily
to-day the men on the staff in theological colleges are
generally alive to the need of flexibility, and have some
real acquaintance with mission problems. At some time
during his pupil-teacher days Andrew Young had settled
the question of his life work. His form master asked
him one day what he meant to be, and the answer was
definite : a missionary on the Congo. His further
preparation was well thought out. The school had done
all it could for him, first as a pupil and now as a teacher ;
if he was to become an industrial missionary and at
the time that was his plan- he would need some business
experience. The next step was an office in Glasgow,
where, if anywhere, the outlines of export and shipping,

GETTING READY 27

accountancy and business method, might be learned.
As stenographer and accountant he passed two years in
the city.

By 1890 he was ready, waiting for the opening which
he believed would come. Nor was expectation disap-
pointed. Away on the Congo River, at the station of
Tunduwa, the Congo-Balolo Mission had a representative
who, in addition to carrying on his ordinary mission
work, was burdened with the task of arranging caravans
for transport so as to supply the needs of fellow
missionaries further up-country. The labour entailed
in engaging carriers, paying them, not in coin but in
the currency of barter brass rods, cotton goods, etc.
the store-keeping which was the corollary of such barter,
the keeping of accounts, had proved all too much for
one man, and he had broken down under the strain.
The Mission looked round for a layman to go out to act
as business man at Tunduwa, and Andrew Young volun-
teered for the post. His acceptance was very hearty,
and as soon as his outfit was ready he proceeded to
Rotterdam to join the S.S. Afrikaan, which would carry
him to the Dutch trading station at Banana on the West
African coast.

Previous to leaving England he went up to Cliff College,
in Derbyshire, so that through a week's intercourse he
might know personally the people directly responsible
for the business direction of the Congo-Balolo Mission,
a friendship which in the case of Dr. Harry Guinness
himself, was deepened in later years in Congo.

From this point we begin to draw upon a long arid

28 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

almost uninterrupted series of letters written from
Africa, Asia, America and on many seas, which went to
his boyhood's home for a space of twenty-five years.

In the first of these letters there emerge some of those
traits of character which were to be constant throughout
Andrew Young's missionary life. The faculty of observa-
tion, the love of nature, and the delight in scenic effects
which were to relieve a mind otherwise too apt to intro-
spection, are clearly brought out. As one follows his
course one sees that it was when placed in situations
where this safeguard of outside interest was removed
that he was in danger of breakdown. The descriptions
of Madeira, Tenerifte, and other places of interest are,
for a youth of twenty-one, remarkably full, whilst the
phrasing is felicitous and easy, A still more constant
factor is the certitude of his religious convictions.
" Jesus as the Saviour of sinners," to quote his own
expression, was so evidently the one sure way of self-
conquest, self-development and persistent peace, that to
the young Christian it seemed strange that others were
oblivious of what must surely be so obvious. To the
young Scot for whom religion was as much a matter of
course as food or sleep, the unconcern of his Dutch
fellow passengers with regard to religious issues seemed
incredible. A Dutch engineer, travelling as a second-
class passenger, after a trip ashore at Madeira, where he
had been drinking heavily, narrowly escaped drowning.
" The following day*" writes Young, " Moody and I got
into conversation with him about the previous day's
proceedings and tried to show him the danger of the
course he was pursuing. He did not seem to have any
religious creed and knew little of the Bible. I tried to

GETTING READY 29

bring before him Jesus as the Saviour of sinners, and I
pray that he may be led to see his need."

The young traveller's religion does not cripple his
interest in the life about him ; it only affects his sense
of values so that "the highest that seemed too high,
the heroic for earth too hard," reduces ship's gossip to
its proper worth and what that is, let any seasoned
voyager by ocean liners bear witness.

It is amusing to see the future medical calmly following
up symptoms until he has traced them to their under-
lying causes, rather than allowing any sentimental or
conventional cliches to sway his judgment. " These
Dutchmen are fearful smokers . . . they also go in
greatly for drinking beer and wine at their meals, this
being the natural result of so much smoking." There
is a touch of the quiet fun which we always expected
from the grown man in his next dry comment : " Some
of them can also consume an astonishing amount of food
at a sitting." The " at a sitting " has the little sting
of healthy relentlessness that colleagues and patients
knew in later years. Patient with our foibles he might
be, tolerant even of our ingenious self-excusings, but
the mind behind the kindly, twinkling eyes was quite
clear as to the causes which our self-esteem would fain
cover over with decent draping. As the unregenerate
would put it, he was "no fool". Also one is thankful
to record that he was quite human even at twenty-one,
when it is difficult to be godly and not censorious, to be
filled with a sense of mission and to retain at the same
time the kindly delights of homely, healthy association.
Only a line or two after his " at a sitting " the boy who
had not long ago left Langholm breaks out : "I could
do fine with a good bowl of rice and raisins of mother's
make."

30 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

Yet another of the constant factors of his life comes out
in this letter the place given to study, study as distinct
from mere reading. When, years later, Andrew Young
and his wife first settled amongst us in Sianfu, they came in
for some good-natured chaff on account of a method of
Bible study which entailed the cutting up of Bibles,
pasting the particular portions to be studied in a manu-
script book, leaving space for written comments, further
clippings, and a complicated system of " railway lines ".
I believe it was connected with a system then being used
by Dr. Campbell Morgan in his very successful Bible
study classes at Westminster. The opportunity offered
by the sight of scissors applied to the Bible was too
good to be lost, and those of us who had not been initiated
in the Westminster methods of study and in " dispensa-
tional teaching " had a joyous fling. Young used to be
amused by our clumsy gambols and his kindly eyes would
only twinkle. But Mrs. Young was always more than a
match for us. We were allowed to go on for a minute
or two, and then with one rapier flash of wit she would
have some unfortunate generally myselfdeftly impaled,
and, amidst a general roar of laughter, we cried " Pax ! "
for that session. Young would look across at the
vanquished member in an elder-brotherly way which
said quite clearly, " You would have it." The railway
lines and the scissors were, I think, only a passing phase,
but the Bible study itself was a lifelong interest. By
his thirty-fifth year he must have so absorbed the actual
text of the English Bible that for a comparison of passages
any system of transcribing and parallelism was super-
fluous. Nor was it only the text. The main outlines
of religious development in the Scriptures were clear in
his mind ; whilst the great doctrines, as taught by the
evangelical school generally, and the Shorter Catechism in

GETTING READY 31

particular, were familiar country where he was thoroughly
at home. I think he sometimes wondered at men's
delight in theological as distinct from strictly biblical
reading. He was far from being intolerant, and by
no stretch of imagination could one see him starting out
on a heresy hunt or a shibboleth inquisition, but he
was, I think, genuinely sorry that, when the source of
the best was to men's hands, they should spend so much
time upon what he considered second-hand material.

That he himself owed much to such teachers as A. T.
Pierson, Campbell Morgan, D. L, Moody and others, he
would gladly acknowledge, but it was always because
he saw in them fellow-delvers into the rich fields of
Scripture ; he approved their method because it meant
induction, induction drawn from the data of Scripture.
Speculative theology which attempted an interpretation
of experience as a whole, left him unmoved. Once
during a rest cure which he prescribed for me, I remember
joyfully absolving myself from any literature in the
Chinese language, and indulging in an orgy of English
reading. The bed was a happy gathering place for
volume after volume of Dale and Fairbairn and Denney,
which I found in my host's library. The next week
Young and I took the road together in a journey to
the rail-head, and as we tramped or rode together, or
fed together in some inn yard, I tried to pass on my
enthusiasm for the man I had been reading. He was
quite kind about it. He was much too unselfish to
grudge to another any respectable enthusiasm ; he was
a good comrade who " played fair " so that the other
man should have his share and a good bit over of the
conversation. But the question would at last crop up :
" But why do you need to go all that roundabout way ?
After all, these books only tell you with many words

32 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

what the Bible tells you with few." The words are not
verbatim, but the sense is exact.

And what became later the settled conviction of the
man, was the serious delight of the boy; there had
never been a break. On the Afrikaan, in 1890, " Ellery,
Moody and I have Bible study for nearly two hours
every day. We are studying Second Corinthians and the
Psalms, going through the latter at the rate of about
twelve a day. They are mines of wealth. How little
we really know of the Word of God, and how much there
is to reveal. I have been reading a book containing the
report of a conference on prophecy, chiefly relating to
Christ's Second Coming, and have got a great deal of light
on Scripture regarding that, which is very cheering."
" Which is very cheering." There speaks the clear-eyed
sanity that informed the whole of the man's religious
life. For, saint and mystic though we grew accustomed
to regard him, his religious life was at bottom simply a
common-sense application to the whole of experience
of those principles which he believed were fundamental
in the life and teaching and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Such being the case, if " light upon the Scripture " made
it clear that the return of his Master would further the pur-
pose for which that same Master had lived and died, such
discovery could not but be " very cheering " to the honest
follower committed to his Lord's programme. But,
cheering as it was, the doctrine was accepted not for
itself; it was valuable only as it related to Jesus, and
not at all as being the pet tenet of some school of
thought whose system must be upheld though the skies
fall.

Nor in the case of Andrew Young is there any fetish
of logical consistency. One thinks of that other great,
brave spirit who still serves God on the edge of an African

GETTING READY 33

Forest, 1 whose immense scholarship and incisive intellect
were all focused upon one aching point of dogma for
many years years wherein he forced his uncomfortable
knowledge upon the attention of the critical theological
school of Europe and America. Urged by the question
of consistency, Schweitzer asked, " If Jesus believed
that His Second Coming was to be in the lifetime of
His first disciples, then was He not mistaken, and could
His life be regarded as other than a failure, His mission
as ending in other than a cul-de-sac ? " Happily for
the troubled theorist there came to him from Africa
men who had gone out into the life of faith and works,
men like Andrew Young ; and these, returning to Ger-
many, told Schweitzer of Africa's sore need of medical
aid, and so led him out of his former bondage to logic,
into freedom through service.

The balanced mind and the devotion to Jesus which
were Andrew Young's leading characteristics show
clearly in his attitude to special dogmas. What he was
anxious to do was to bring men to Jesus Christ to see
Him for themselves ; the rest he trusted to his Lord.
Jesus could be trusted to make His own impression.
Particular aspects of the Christian faith might not
immediately appeal to a man, might not even do so
after several years. For Andrew Young the main
business in life is given in the words used above, " I
tried to bring before him Jesus as the Saviour of sinners ".
He was doing this in 1890 ; he was doing it in 1922.
Like his great namesake, whom he so much resembled,
his plea was " Come and see ". Once let a man live like
that, and there was no need for any attempt to force
him to assent to special views as to the Parousia or
any other subject. The Saviour would draw him.
1 Albert Schweitzer, " On the Edge of the Primeval Forest."

C

34 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

In common with most letters written by young mis-
sionaries on their first voyage out, there is a great desire
to comfort the folks left at home. The feeling is very
natural, and one which the missionary shares with all
decent people. Much of the early correspondence of
the business man coming out East for the first time will
consist of attempts to cheer his home folks. Where
distinction in character shows is in the means used.
Most of us tell our friends that eight years will soon
pass and we shall be home again. Our young Scot of
twenty-one, with his face set on his lifelong quest, is
more fundamental. " The Cross He has seen fit to lay
upon us is separation from each other. Let us bear it
joyfully for His sake. . . . How apt our hearts are to
cleave to the things seen and temporal. Let us try to
rise above them and live looking for the blessed hope
and glorious appearing of our Saviour, which may be very
soon." The shy reserve which was the man's habitual
armour makes this last sentence the more weighty ; he
was the last man to mouth pious phrases because they
represented the conventions of a school. There are times
when words not very different from these quoted make us
shrink with distaste and even disgust, because they are so
evidently mere phrasing, running smoothly over the glib
tongue of some shallow speaker; but here they are informed
with life, they are wrung out of a real experience, for he
who wrote them was leaving his exceptionally fine parents,
whose love meant so much to him, he was heading for
a strange land and a lonely life, and in his need he dived
into the wells of his faith and spiritual experience and
from their depths brought up the greatest truth he knew.

For the rest, he got the maximum of interest out of

GETTING READY 35

his voyage. The gleaming lights of flying fish, the
wonders of spouting whales, the majesty of Teneriffe,
the meannesses of men cooped up on ship-board, are
all observed and thought upon. The port of entry was
Banana, and an enforced wait for the tide enabled him
to get the low line of the coast, the luxurious palm-
fringed shore, and " the mouth of the Congo River so
long looked forward to", well into his mind. One
needs to be twenty-one and to have a mission, to be
enthusiastic over West African coasts.

The " Dutch House," the head-quarters of the trading
station, was a big shock to the God-fearing, clean boy
from Langholm. No description given beforehand can
prepare the carefully brought up traveller for the realities
which meet him in such places as the old pre-war Port
Said (one of the war's few blessings was the cleaning
up of that former internationally misgoverned cesspool),
the old Barbary coast of 'Frisco, or the gambling farm
of Sandakan in North-west Borneo. Evidently what
hurt the spirit of Andrew Young was the youth of some
of these Dutch employees ; that they should be steeped
in evil so soon, before they had ever had a decent chance.
As is so often the case, these youngsters gamblers and
drunkards though they appeared to him were thoroughly
good-natured, and helped the party of dazed strangers on
their way to Mukimvika, fifteen miles away.

Under a heavy lumbering sail they set out at four
o'clock in the afternoon, and went well enough till the
wind dropped. Then came one of those glorious moon-
light nights of Africa when the body drinks in the grateful
coolness, and the imagination is laved by silvery radiance.
The myriad strangenesses of the first African crowd that
had surrounded the ship at Banana were past, the crew
of the native boat had settled down to its steady oar

36 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

work, the outlet offered by an acute observation was
closed, and the soul was utterly receptive. Who shall
say what were the long, long thoughts of youth that
night as Andrew Young was borne along the great brown
waterway of West Africa ?

The days of preparation were ended ; the getting
ready was over. Home and school and kirk had had
their way with him. The great adventure of life was
at the threshold.

'.vj

ill

'I

1J

CHAPTER II

From Transport Agent to Medical Amateur

ANDREW YOUNG entered Africa as a missionary without
professional training ; he left it with the determination
to obtain a professional equipment before returning to
the mission field. Between the arrival and departure
there lay a whole education as to missionary facts and
policies ; an education gained in the school of experience.
In following the course of his African story it becomes
increasingly clear that whilst the missionary in primitive
countries needs to be an all-round man, he will, sooner
or later, realize the need of technical facility in some
one branch of service. Boat-building, brick-making,
labour-recruiting, account-keeping, school-teaching and
bazaar preaching, were a few of the duties which fell
to the lot of the Congo missionary. ; he turned his hand
to them as best he could in some instances without
specialized training in any one branch only to realize
sooner or later that he was a jack-of -all-trades and master
of none. For men willing to learn the lesson of experi-
ence, however unpleasant such a lesson may be, perhaps
no two aspects of this mixed work more clearly forced
upon them the need of thorough training than did the
preaching and the healing.

The idea that anyone who is genuinely converted and
who " knows his Bible " can straightway proceed to the

37

38 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

mission field " to preach to the heathen ", may sound
plausible in an enthusiastic gathering at home, but it
may spell tragedy for the man abroad. His first rush
of enthusiasm has carried him over the stage of language
study ; he has commenced to " preach to the heathen ",
and he finds confronting him, not the fires of persecution
but the polite bewilderment of puzzled hearers who
gently meet his stereotyped statements of a truth which
has gripped him, but which he has never troubled to
analyse, with their persistent : " Yes, but why ? " Arid
when the months grow into years, with the untrained
missionary still seeking to give this " Why " its answer,
we need not be surprised that he sometimes feels how
ill-advised he was to belittle the once suspected college
training, which could have provided him with an intel-
lectual apparatus that would at least have eased his
burden and might well have greatly increased his
usefulness.

With regard to the body-healing aspect of missionary
work, conviction as to the need of special training is
apt to be reached much sooner. The very success of
the missionary's early efforts to give relief only make
clear to him how double-edged may be the instrument
which he wields. Castor oil and quinine, first aid and
bandaging, may meet the requirements of his first appli-
cants ; but these proceed to carry the news of their
good fortune to others, and the amateur physician is
then faced with disease, deformity, and mangled bodies
before which his simple remedies are impotent ; the
would-be patients and their friends suffer disappointment
hard to bear ; and often, as a result, a general lowering
of enthusiasm is perceptible throughout the mission's
little world.
Out of such experience there comes the conviction

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 89

that even as the missionary dare not withhold such
medical remedies as he has when no professional aid is
available, so neither dare he delay in making it clear
to the churches at home that Our Lord's injunction
" to teach, to preach and to heal "is not being obeyed
until trained missionaries find their way to the field.
The growth of this conviction the need of trained
workers is the thread which guides one through the
six years' story of Andrew Young in Africa.

- Mukimvika was an interlude of two days only,
until the S.S. Mariaan came pounding up river en
route for Boma and Matadi. How strange to-day
reads the comment : " Boma is not a very imposing
place for the capital of a large country (The Congo
Free State). The Governor-General and other big men
live there, and if Stanley comes out as Governor, as
it is said he will next year, he will probably live at
Boma."

Boma might not be imposing, but how it brings up
one vivid picture of past history ; that of H. M. Stanley,
still young, but with hair blanched by the strain through
which he had passed, arriving after the long, aching
interval of silence, with the story of his white comrades
dead in that remorseless African jungle which lay between
the Nyanggwee where Tippu Tib was first encountered,
and Boma, which represented the safety to which he
alone had at last won through.

Stanley had returned to London in 1878, and his
" Through the Dark Continent " had appeared the
same year, and now in Boma they were awaiting his
return to Africa to act as Governor of the State for
which he had laboured from '79 to '84. But after his

40 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

Emin Pasha relief expedition was over and he had had
his almost royal reception in London in 1890, Stanley
married Miss Dorothy Tennant and settled down to
English life.

The unexpected offer of a lift on a Dutch House launch
saved our young traveller's pocket to the extent of
fifty shillings, the price of a river steamer ticket f or
the hundred and ten miles to Matadi. A delay in the
capital whilst waiting for the passenger steamer would
also have involved an hotel bill " which is rather expen-
sive ; thirteen and sixpence a day ". happy far-off
days of Arcadian simplicity when the good Queen Victoria
still reigned over us, and the Number One hotel of an
African state's capital was content with thirteen and
sixpence a day !

Two aspects of African life had by this time impressed
themselves upon the newcomer, that ships and men
seemed to make a practice of being two or three hours
late, and that drinking and gambling were very preva-
lent. The wait at Boma only served to strengthen both
impressions.

On the trip from Boma to Matadi they spotted a
hippopotamus. One of the party had a shot at it, but
with very little effect as far as they could see ; and
somehow one gathers that the latest recruit had a sneaking
satisfaction that the hippo was to be left to enjoy Congo
wallowing for a while longer. In later years he became
a fair shot and had occasion to be grateful in a change
of fare in the shape of good venison after the much
tinned meat and the ever-present eggs. But with him
it was always a matter of food supply ; he took no pleasure
in hunting for hunting's sake.

At Tunduwa he struck the first field work of the
Society he was to know so well in after years the Baptist

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 41

Missionary Society from England. This station was
known as Underbill in the Society's records, being named
after one of its former secretaries. Mr. Forfeitt of the
B.M.S. was then at Tunduwa, and there was also a
colleague named Pinnock, a married man who hailed
from Jamaica. At Tunduwa he met also the man he
had come to relieve, Mr. Todd of the Congo-Balolo
Mission at Matadi, which was four miles farther up
river, and which was, as far as the Lower River work
was concerned, to be the new head-quarters of the
Congo-Balolo Mission. As there was not at the moment
any accommodation for Young at Matadi, he had to
stay for a week or two in Tunduwa, but on the night
of his arrival he and Todd sat far into the night discussing
plans and hopes. For Todd, harassed and over-driven,
it was a sight for sore eyes to see a new arrival in the
pink of condition. After an hour's talk with Andrew
Young the average man would feel that he was dealing
with a sound worker who would say little and do much.
In that region of early Dutch influence the motto of
the greatest Hollander of all, " I will maintain," might
well have been descriptive of this quiet purposeful soul.
William the Silent would have rejoiced over Andrew
Young.

The following day the two men went to Matadi to
look out for a suitable site and to " knock up a little
iron house, the materials for which we have here."
Presumably the " little iron house " was to be that
apotheosis of ugliness, the heat-retaining corrugated iron
building. No wonder that Bell and Young and other
ex-Congo workers who migrated later to China appre-
ciated the much cheaper but cool and comfortable
Chinese mud-brick houses which hasty deputations from
London dismiss lightly as " rabbit warrens." At Matadi,

42 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

Young stayed with another " coloured gentleman from
Jamaica", who was the transport agent for the American
Baptist Missionary Union (to be referred to subsequently
as the A.B.M.U.). Matadi was a bustling place at the
time, in full swing with railway construction, since it
was the base for the new line of railway which would
yet take ten years to complete. It was immensely
interesting in its activities to the man fresh from home.
What he found even more wonderful, however, in Matadij
was to hear the Gospel preached at a service on Sunday
by the Christian head carrier, whilst the hymns sung in
the Fioto, or Ki-Kongo dialect, to the old lilt of Sankey's
tunes, affected him as they must do anyone with religious
sensitiveness and power of imagination.

On the Monday morning, Todd, Young, and Ellery,
his fellow passenger on the S.S. Ajrikaan, started building
a 24 x 23 foot hut, which was to be divided into two
rooms ; one being the store and the other the newcomer's
domicile. On the Congo bank, thirty years ago, one
would not have thought that such an undertaking would
have required the sanction of the Circumlocution Office,
but on the second morning of their work the three mis-
sionaries found themselves confronted by a State official
who demanded to see their permit to build. Having no
idea that such permission would be required, they had
to stop work whilst Ellery went down to Boma for the
requisite document. Thus an additional five pounds
price of the return fare had to be added to the expenses of
the hut. Evidently in 1890 Messrs. Tite, Barnacle & Co.
already had their grip on the Congo Free State. Building
being thus stopped Andrew had to move back to Tun-
duwa, where the Forf eitts put him up whilst he began
his transport work in the C.B.M. (Congo Balolo Mission).
He finds time to put in some scenic descriptions, his

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 43

impressions of the negro children, of experiments with
cassava and other foods, his ideas of various animals he
had seen monkeys, a serpent, an alligator devotes a
paragraph to the jigger pest, and then closes his remark-
able letter of twenty-four finely written sheets by
apologizing because he had not told his parents much
about Africa.

Transport management and frame-house building
whilst the glass registers 110 degrees in the shade, is
an experience which is to-day far more widely and
intelligently understood by British folk than before 1914.
Mesopotamia and the oases of the Senussi front, to say
nothing of the terrible East African campaign, brought
to tens of thousands of otherwise home-staying Britons
the knowledge of what Empire building means outside
the pages of Kipling, Stevenson and others. But Protes-
tant missionaries have known it for a century. The
useful and comfortable buildings of to-day which one
may see in Calcutta and Peking, have to be considered
in the light of the hardships of the pioneers. And the
pioneer story is still being enacted at the frontier posts
of missionary enterprise. Andrew Young was surprised
to see the comfortable homes in Tunduwa ; but in Matadi
he was soon to realize the beginnings from which those
homes had been evolved, and to appreciate what the
Tunduwa residents had been through in their early
days.

There is no need to-day to detail those features of
African life which seemed strange to the new-comer in
1890, but which have become so well known through
much descriptive writing since that day, though Andrew
Young's fresh and delightful writing is worth reading

44 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

for its own sake. But, as showing the quality of the
man's mind, it is interesting to see how quickly he
fastened upon two of the factors of Congo life which
meant retarded progress : (1) The close corporation of
vested interests ran in co-operation by the local chieftain
and the witch-doctor, and (2) the economic position of
woman. The first of these factors worked by a fairly
well-thought-out system of mass suggestion, using as its
instruments superstitions ready to hand. That the
manipulators themselves were not always aJbove the
power of such suggestion, added to its power rather than
decreased it. The second factor, the economic condition
of the Congo women, was a fatal weakness in the country's
development. The purchased wives were the sole culti-
vators of the soil, yet they, the actual producers, were
never able to give direction to their work ; whilst the
owner-husbands brought no intelligent collective organiza-
tion to the general movement of agriculture. Nor was
there even a partial remedy for this state of things
through the " magic of possession " being granted to the
woman field-worker, since the wife who is only one of a
half-dozen can have little pride in the history of the
family acres.

In settling down to his work, like others who have
had to deal with labour amongst primitive peoples, he
found that the carriers were apt to be troublesome. His
native good sense and fair-mindedness helped him, how-
ever, to get behind the apparently meaningless obstinacy
and perversity of the carriers, and to discover some of
the actual facts behind their vagaries. Given six
hundred pounds of goods to be carried, and a file of
ten men to carry them, the willingness of a carrier to
take piece A, weighing thirty pounds, and his refusal
to accept piece B, of equal weight, in order to make up

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 45

his contracted sixty pounds, will, when viewed from
the counter of a store-room, seem sheer stupidity. But
Andrew Young had not done his forty-mile tramps in
Scotland for nothing, nor had the eyes then trained to
see the lie of the land grown less observant. " The
roads here (of Congo) would be considered very bad
footpaths in Scotland, many of them rocky and covered
with sharp stones. Consequently they are hard on boots,
and even on the hardened negro feet. We are just
surrounded by steep hills, and the paths up them are
pretty hard on a man carrying sixty pounds." Weight
is not the only consideration for a carrier on such roads.
Compactness, balance and " feel " all come in. For,
once the particular carrier has accepted his burden, he
has to make the best of it for the long tramp, and, native
of the country though he be, the sixty pounds weight,
carried in a temperature of 130 degrees in the sun and
it may be little of shade that he may find on his path
will be apt to monopolize most of his outlook till the
contract is carried out. So the wise transport agent will
not storm at the carrier for being troublesome in his
choice of packages, but will try to get at the reason for
any unwillingness he may show.

The new-comer settled down to his daily work, and
the hot season settled down also. It says much for the
wiriness and fitness of the recruit that after six weeks of
it he had never had an hour's sickness. He had con-
stantly to trudge the four miles between Tunduwa and
Matadi, where " the hill tracks seemed as steep as the
sides of the Monument ", and the rocky surface played
havoc with shoe leather. Although he tried so to
arrange his work that he could do the trip in the cool
early morning, he was at times obliged to do it in the
hottest part of the day, when even in the shade the

46 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

glass registered 110 degrees. No wonder that he lost
eight pounds weight in a month. Also, by this time
he was finding out what it means to oversee nine Congo
workmen as a regular staff ; men who had apparently
no glimmering of a sense of responsibility between the
lot of them. As he had picked up only a few words of
the language, it was impossible to keep them at work by
sweet reasonableness. Display of temper was also out of
the question ; it is the one fatal course of white men,
who, in the last analysis, have to rely upon the moral
prestige of a self-control beyond the native's attainment.
There remained only an increasing watchfulness, and the
very slow establishment of ascendancy through a con-
sistently Christian life. " If one is watching them they
put on a'n appearance of work, at any rate." Under
such conditions, and in a place where it is badly needed,
there comes out that commonsense view of his Christian
religion which was one of Andrew Young's biggest assets
that Christianity, if true, must be meant " to work "
under any condition. A religion which will only fit the
needs of a European community living in civilized con-
ditions may make good this, that or the other claim ; the
claim it cannot make good is that of being regarded as
universal ; so that, embarrassing and unexpected though
some Congo problem may seem, a solution there must be
if the Christian will but patiently seek it. Loyally and
unswervingly Andrew Young prosecuted that search for
many years. The more important values of his Christian
life lay not where he was unique, but where he was ordinary.
Not in its emphasis upon the gracious and exceptive
features of the man's life is found the justification of his
biography, but in such power as it may have to show
his grasp upon that Christian heritage common to us all,
for " the justification of a biography is not that it

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 47

emphasises the exceptional, but that it illustrates the
value of the permanent". It is not the perfunctory
deliverance of some truism, but the personal discovery
of a principle which prompts Andrew Young to say :
" Under these circumstances, I think, in transport work
one needs a double share of grace to keep up one's spiritual
life. But He giveth more grace, and I am sure that in
answer to your prayer and mine the Lord will always
make His Grace sufficient for me, and His Strength perfect
in my weakness. May He enable me so to deal with
these men as to impress them favourably by the religion
I profess."

However, amongst the general ruck of his labourers
he discovered one bright Congo lad who was worth three
of any of them, and promoted him to act as cook and
general bottle-washer. The promoted domestic used up
soap at an alarming rate, and scrubbed clothes so vigor-
ously that " clothes that are washed often do not wear
long" may Indian dhobis and Chinese wash-coolies
bear their witness also but his efforts made the mission-
ary's life less uncomfortable than it had been. One is
delighted also to find that Andrew is searching anxiously
for a monkey to keep as a pet. He had seen their worth
whilst living at the Forfeits'. " They really are jolly
little fellows and do cheer one up." Evidently there
was no fear of the young transport agent becoming
dehumanized.

The Matadi house was at last sufficiently fitted for
Young to live in. Only his shipmate, Ellery, as raw as
himself to Congo lore, helped him in the building, as
Todd had had to leave them to go up-country. They
had no tools of their own, but managed to borrow. To
the builders' dismay they early found that the wooden
framework on to which the corrugated iron sheeting was

48 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

to be nailed, was up-country, and they had to knock
the frame together as best they could, " fit or not fit ".
Then Ellery had to leave for his own station, and Young
was left with his Congo boys to finish the house. The
amateur had to be " joiner, mason and slater, all in
one". He ran out of nails, and although the Belgian
State officials had abundance in their stores, they refused
to sell him one ; not even his best French could charm
them into selling. Finally, by pulling his boxes to
pieces, he assembled enough nails to get the iron sheeting
attached to his wooden framework. The dissected boxes
he turned into "flooring", and then moved into his
"house". After the usual misfortunes of the amateur
he succeeded in baking bread, and even had ambitions as
to starting a fowl-run.

The construction of the new railway brought Kroo
boys from Liberia to act as coolie labourers on a two-year
contract, whilst from Accra, Lagos and Sierra Leone
came artisans, clerks and the small storekeepers who are
always to be found on the fringes of construction camps.
Evidently life was not made too easy for them, and the
missionaries tried to bring their Gospel message to men
thus separated from home ties and living in unfavourable
conditions. In this work Young bore his share. It was
not very satisfactory, as they had to speak through an
interpreter, who himself had none too sure a grip on
the several dialects. Much more cheering was a service
held for the railway workers from Sierra Leone. " There
are many very intelligent fellows amongst them, and
they understand English as well as ourselves. We
have a very good attendance, as many as the place
will hold." It was probably on account of the whole-
hearted way in which he threw himself into such work
that he received one day a letter addressed to "The

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 49

Rev. A. Young ", He regarded the address as a huge
joke.

Soon after setting up house for himself he met with
that frequent problem of the missionary, though one
which appears but little in missionary literature, the
problem of the down-and-out white. The incident is
given here in full because it is typical of what befalls
so many missionaries, especially medical men, and
because Andrew Young repeatedly came across similar
cases in Africa and in China, each case involving a re-
newed struggle between his shrewdness and his compas-
sion. He saw through the lying and the shuffling, the
cant and the humbug, yet, whilst these nauseated him,
he could not refuse the evidence of his senses as to the
reality of a fellow white's present humiliation and distress
in a far-off land.

Walking one day some miles from home, he saw a
shabby-looking white man throw himself down by the
wayside. According to the man's own story he was a
sailor who had come out to Banana on a Norwegian
vessel. He had come up-river on a Belgian boat, but
had been turned off at Matadi because he was sick.
Young led him to the English traders' place at Nkala
Nkala, but suspecting that their reception of him might
be doubtful, he invited the man to look in at Tunduwa
later. When Young got home the sailor was already
sitting outside the door waiting for him, the trader
"having refused even to see him " to the young mission-
ary's indignation. (How well we know this stage, when
the plausible white beach-comber first foists himself upon
us !) With the hot season in full swing, the little room
of twelve feet square, with one tiny bed, was no place for
two men. And the young missionary's stores of food
were barely sufficient for his own needs. But day after

D

50 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI '

day the new-comer hung around. According to him, his
father was a drunkard, and though " he himself did not
taste drink ", his unsavoury stories of life in Manchester
slums soon gave a feeling of discomfort to his good
Samaritan host, who was " afraid that he is apt to
exaggerate". "He seems to take it pretty easy here;
I must confess I wish he would get something to do."
He concluded that the man's arrival was an opportunity
of showing patience and kindness, but it was evident
that he was not hoodwinked. However, after a week
or ten days he writes, " The English sailor got work on
the railway and started to-day. He was in to-night and
seems well pleased with the place. I am glad, both for
his own sake and mine, that he got work, as two were
rather many in this small twelve-foot square room of

mine."

One is glad that his first African attempt at helping
a lame dog over a stile had this pleasant chapter in it,
that he was not faced too soon with the disillusionment
as to fellow-nationals which is apt to come all too soon
in the tropics. Months later, when this sailor had worn
out his employers' patience in Matadi and had made
himself a public nuisance through drink and rowdyism,
he was sent down under military escort to Boma. There
he was dismissed with a caution, but went from bad to
worse, drinking whenever he could, and the last one
reads of him he is again in prison, " for some offence
or other". By that time, however, Young, though
deeply disappointed at the failure, was more experienced
and less knocked over by it than he would have been
if the poor wretch had, immediately after his good
Samaritan's care for him, displayed himself only as he
was a mixture of hypocrisy, weak will and intermittent
maudlin desire for improvement.

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 51

With his new store built, his work organized, and the
daily journeys to Tunduwa no longer necessary, Andrew
managed to work in some language study, and so short-
ened the irksome period through which he had to pass
before he was able to preach to the Congos in their
own language. His desire for such work needed no
stimulus, but if it had done so it would have received
it on Christmas Day, when he first met one who bore a
name which had already become famous in African
missionary history. He had gone to Tunduwa to spend
the day with the missionaries there. " I met two other
missionaries. One of them was Mr. Percy Comber, who
had come down-country to take his sick wife home, but
she died at Banana just about a fortnight ago, having
only been in the country about six months. We had a
native service in the carriers' shed, Mr. Comber speaking
to a large assembly. On Christmas evening we observed
the Lord's Supper together, when Mr. Reid spoke, chiefly
upon our Lord's Resurrection, and the hope it brought
to the believer." And Percy Comber with that message
in his heart went back to his desolate, lonely home and
to his work.

Young got back to Matadi the next day, to experience
his first dose of African fever. It is interesting to note
how this future medical carefully observed and kept
track of the various symptoms. He managed to crawl
up to " the State " (the public bureau for labour) to see
about some carriers, got back with difficulty, drank hot
tea to induce perspiration, took ten grains of quinine,
and went to bed. The next morning he had to organize
two caravans, and " with difficulty got them off " before
nightfall. That night he naturally had a rising tempera-
ture, but a day in bed put him right. " Thus passed
my first experience of fever, and I sjipuld not much ca,re

52 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

if it were the last, as I can't say I enjoyed it particularly
well." This last sentence is a good specimen of Young's
grade of grumbling. He could fire up with indignation
at injustice to others, he could work himself into a
passion of pity for suffering not his own, but where he
himself was concerned : "I cannot say that I particularly
enjoy it."

A visit which he paid shortly after this fever bout,
partly with an idea of recovering his strength, is so well
described that it is given here verbatim as a specimen
of his excellent powers as a letter-writer. Month after
month they went off to his parents, those letters written
in the beautiful caligraphy flowing, minute, yet quite
clear which it is evident that both Andrew Young and
William Rae learned at Langholm Academy, handwriting
which it is a joy in these typewriting days to read.

" On the day after New Year's Day I paid a visit to
Palabala, about nine miles from Matadi. It was my first
real experience of travelling in the African bush. I
started about two o'clock in the afternoon from Matadi,
the day being rather cloudy and favourable for travelling,
as when the sun is shining strongly it is almost impossible
to travel any distance here. The first mile and a half
or two miles was one straight climb uphill, but as it was
not very steep I did not mind it much. Part of the
road led through some pretty high grass, some of it
reaching, I am sure, to eight or nine feet, and it will
probably grow longer than this, as the rainy season, in
which things grow, has little more than started. On
reaching the top of the hill I found that there was a very
steep descent to the river M'poso, which has to be crossed
in going up-country. On getting across it I came to the
real difficulty of the journey, Palabala Hill. (I ought
to have told you that Palabala lies about 1,700 feet above

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 53

the sea.) It is a good deal higher than Whita, so you
may know what climbing it under a tropical sun would
be like. I thought I was never going to get to the top.
Up, up, up, an hour's straight climbing. I was glad when
at last I reached the top of the last ridge, and then I
saw my destination away in the distance. My way now lay
through bush all the way. Tall grass rose away above
my head on either side of the path ; and low trees also.
I was reminded of old Scotland by what looked very
like the breckons we have on the Scottish hills. After
I had reached the top of the hill I found I had still about
an hour's walk before me and it was thundering and
looked very like a downpour of rain. So I hurried
pretty briskly along, and got to Palabala just in time to
escape the rain, which soon commenced to pour."

Upon his return from Palabala he was overtaken by
the ever-present enemy "the jiggers". His boy had to
do rude surgery with a pointed piece of wood to get out
nine or ten of them. " They make a good few little
holes in a person's feet. . . . The worst pain is taking
them out." Just so! He had trouble with the mos-
quitoes, and a new experience, prickly heat, of which
"the itch is something fearful". A sentence follows
which, coming from some men would sound unconvincing
and conventional, but from this man, who related all
phases of experience quite simply to the one Christian
interpretation, the words read naturally. Was it not
for a Christian the common-sense way of regarding life ?
"In spite of all these things, however, the Lord has
been very good to me in preserving my health to such
an extent. I now feel as well as ever again. Praise the
Lord for it." He soon surmised that there was more
danger in Matadi to the health of the soul than to the
health of the body, and so made a practice of rising at

54 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

five o'clock, or half-past five at the latest, in order to
secure an hour for devotions, as his men began work
about six o'clock, and he himself had to breakfast and
be on duty as soon after that as was possible. However
wearied he might be in his later Chinese experiences, he
always maintained the practice commenced in his Congo
days of rising early in order to secure time for his morning
devotions.

He found that a Congo-Balolo transport agent had at
times to act also as medical officer, since his workmen
frequently got sick, " especially when there is a little
work on hand ". Almost all the ills that can afflict a
Congo man may be classed under one heading, " Vuma
Yela," which in familiar phrase at home would be called
" a sore tummy ". A pleasant-tasting medicine, he found,
would promptly bring on an obstinate relapse. " I
therefore generally gave them a good dose of castor oil,
as, if they know they will have to take this, they get
better as soon as they can, and don't get sick again if
they can help it." (In China it was Epsom salts or, for
the A 1 class of malingerer, calomel, though Dr. Young's
heart was not quite so hard as that of his medical wife
in this respect. One might obtain cascara aromatica
from Dr. Andrew ; by Dr. Charlotte more drastic remedies
were prescribed.)

As a housekeeper he evidently fancied himself, and
grew dangerously near to unregenerate pride over his
success in cooking porridge. " The thing I am most
satisfied with is the porridge. I am making them just
right, and have got just the kind of oatmeal I like."
Incidentally his housekeeping sheds some light on his
storekeeping. For elevenpence he bought a cock, a hen
and two good-sized chickens, and started poultry farming
seriously, as he found by experience that a tin of meat,

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 55

too large for one man at a sitting, would not keep good
until the next meal. The elevenpence mentioned above
represented the difference between the storekeeper's
second-hand dress coat, ticketed half a crown, and the
farmer's nineteen-penny roll of cloth which was given
him as " change ". The thought of our serious member
of North United Free Kirk trading cast-off glad rags
(from the previous London season) to African chicken-
farmers, is sufficiently arresting.

At a later date he makes the shamefaced confession
that he has ordered tea from home. " You will be sur-
prised to hear me talk of tea, but I have taken to it
wonderfully since I came out here, although I do not
take too much. Some of the missionaries out here take
it three or four times a day, which cannot be good, as
it tends to make a person nervous." ! model youth,
for whom " chota hazri " was a word uncoined, and to
whom 9 p.m. tea was unknown ! However, he learned
how to make use of the abundant limes that were pro-
curable, and found the mango " a delicious fruit ", so one
feels that he was making progress.

His pride as a housekeeper-cook was somewhat lowered
later. In acknowledging hints from home on porridge-
making, he has to confess, " I have not been making
any lately, as all my oatmeal went bad and bred worms,
as everything seems to do out here." But he is still
not so chastened as to refrain from a parting crow,
" I think, however, when I used to be making them
(" them " being " those porridge "), the time for cooking
which you mention was about what I took; anyhow,
I had reasonably good results." He goes into bread and
biscuit baking next, and what with a new oil-cooker, an
added kitchen, and his flourishing poultry-run, he evi-
dently considers himself in clover. The boy who delighted

56 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

in Henty had still enough of the Robinson Crusoe in
him to glory in the facility for hammering difficulties
into achievements. Being cautioned from home against
taking too many medicines, he replies in his pawky way
that " the caution is scarcely necessary, as I have not
got too many medicines to take ". In the same way he
agrees with a Langholm theorist, that the " itchiness "
which sometimes covers the body in Congo is a healthy
sign, although rather an uncomfortable one, and then
adds, " For my part, I would much rather that my
health would take some other means of displaying itself."

He finds from experience how right is Livingstone's
dictum as to the need of keeping up one's spirits in
fever. " This is a most important fact in curing it. All
worry and anxiety must be avoided as much as possible."
For Young, the way to do this is clear : it is through
" casting all our care upon Him".

His descriptions of Congo customs include one upon
their burial arrangements. To any who are familiar with
ancient Egypt, as seen on the wall paintings of Thebes
and the friezes of Karnak, it is an interesting speculation
how far the old Egyptian lore penetrated into the barbaric
African tribes, and to what extent those tribes preserved
such knowledge. 1 Young's letters describe the way in
which a Congo man who wears only a wisp of cloth
round his loins will have hundreds of pieces stored in
his house against the day of his burial. These are to
go into the grave where his body especially if he is a
chief is laid embalmed. The grave and its treasures
being "taboo", no Congo man, however light-fingered,
will venture to violate them. Instead of the natron
preservative which one sees so commonly in the Egyptian

1 Cf. the brilliant piece of reasoning in ch. 9 of M. Pierre Benoit's
L'Atlantide (Michel, Paris).

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 57

desert as, for example, in the Christian necropolis at
Kharga or the cemetery of the old Roman garrison a
few miles away " the Lower Congo custom for people of
importance was to smoke-dry the body of the deceased,
rubbing it with oil and ochre, afterwards wrapping the
body in cloth using hundreds of pieces until it assumes
huge dimensions, and, according to the social prestige of
the dead man, burying with him cloth and various
valuables representing his possessions in life and the
gifts received from the mourners." 1 One custom in
Congo he was to meet with later in China : people refused
to live in a house in which they knew a man had recently
died. " If they cannot sell the house to a white man
they burn it." The Chinese do not go to such lengths,
but they will take care to have the dying person brought
out into the open courtyard before the end, and if by
any mishap a house gets " haunted " it goes very cheaply.
Probably a large proportion of the premises now used
by inland missionaries to-day come under this " haunted "
category.

One of the surprises of these early letters is the high
opinion the writer forms of the Congo ability in debate,
the orderliness of the proceedings, and the faculty for
keeping to the point, which he says would put to shame
many orators at home. He is speaking here of the
full dress " palaver " court trial, but even so one would
not have expected so high a testimony. The code of
laws used, he describes as " regular but not always
just " : for example, " you cannot accuse a man of
stealing unless you saw him taking the stolen article.
You may see the stolen article in the man's house, but
you cannot accuse him of theft because you did not

1 Description by John Bell, A.T.S., Author of "Matula " (R.T.S.
1903).

58 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

catch him stealing." There is a familiar tang about
this description which haunts the reader, who wonders
where he has met it before until he recalls some of the
methods of " la haute finance " of our own modern
Western world.

For the biographer a closing passage of his April
letter has interest : "I have never time to read these
letters over, so don't let any literary critic read them,
or they may be severely taken to pieces with regard to
literary merit." It is remarkable how fresh and clear
his letters are, how easily the main line of the story
develops, and with what a sure touch the life about him
is related to underlying causes ; and all this from a
youth of twenty-one, never previously away from Scot-
land, who is working hard all day at his various tasks
under a tropical sun.

In connection with this question of correspondence
it seems rather cruel that after fifteen months' absence
from home he should have heard nothing from Scottish
friends except through his regular home letter. He
seems to have written widely himself, both to Langholm
and to Glasgow, and to have drawn about three short
replies only. Again and again the sentence crops up :
" I have never heard from any of the Glasgow folk yet.
Your letter is about the only one I get except business
letters." I wonder if people at home realize the bitter
sense of being thrown over that comes to men in Asia
and Africa when month after month goes by and they
are left without a line. Once in India I saw the way in
which this silence affected a kindly, gracious man in
the Civil Service who, when at the 'Varsity at home,
had given time day after day, at considerable cost to
himself, to cheering up men who were revisiting their
old college. Sweltering later under canvas, doing settle-

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 59

ment work in a country district of Bengal, he saw mail
day after mail day pass by, bringing him not a line from
those who might so easily out of the abundance of their
interesting life at home have spared him an odd half -hour
and a letter.

In February the young missionary's first bunch of
boys had run away, scared by a case of dysentery. By
this time he had discovered as all missionaries have to
discover sooner or later how careful one has to be not
to spoil native boys. " If too much favour is shown
them they take advantage of it, and become petted and
self-willed. They think themselves high in favour with
the white man, and are apt to be proud and overbearing
towards their brothers who occupy a less favourable
position." Those were days in which missionaries were
often taunted with " spoiling the nigger ". To-day, when
business men have themselves had long experience in using
native assistants, it is recognised that there is no royal
road to success in management. Unceasing vigilance,
firmness, patience, are all required, and above all the
maintenance of the belief in the native mind that the
white man's word is trustworthy and that he intends
justice.

Andrew Young was soon to find out how this white
prestige was threatened when he got into touch with
the so-called hospital run by the Belgian officials of the
railway. The treatment there is described as follows :
The building was a wooden shed with a felt-covered
roof ; the patients lay on bare boards, " unless they
were fortunate enough to have a spare blanket of their
own." The man who called himself the doctor had one
remedy, and one only, for every case quinine. The
patients' pay and rations stopped from the day they
went into " hospital ", and their only food was the Indian

60 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

corn with which we feed fowls at home. " Such treat-
ment is enough to kill a man in perfect health, let alone
a sick man. I was told on good authority that a hundred
and fifty men had died at Matadi within two months,
and I quite believe it. And these are not ignorant
negroes, but intelligent men from the coast, some from
two thousand miles away, brought from their homes by
the fair promises of those who hire them for ' The Congo
Free State ', which was for the good of Africa and was to
civilize it. These Belgians seem to think nothing at all
of the life of a black man. If they get the work done
they do not care at what cost of life it is done." 1 Since
that day the modern world has learnt more of the danger
of trusting any group of men with irresponsible powers
when they have a dividend-demanding public in the
background.

The drink traffic was a problem that forced itself
upon the attention of all decent people in Congoland in
those days (probably a number of the white employees
in the various trading houses felt at least a strong dis-
taste, if not an active disgust, for it). It was immensely
profitable for business firms, since the cheap spirit
labelled " gin " a liquor that would have been con-
demned as unsaleable in any sophisticated community
exchanged for many times its value in native products.
The absence of any protection for the native consumer

1 Such was Andrew Young's experience. For the sake of a nation
which has come to mean much in our later history, one is glad to
record that Belgian officials of another type were to be found in Congo.
" I have only known two railway doctors, and both were skilful and
kind," writes the Rev. G. R. R. Cameron, of the Baptist Missionary
Society, with regard to his long Congo service. This writer also
points out that the accommodation which strikes us as so unfit for
the sick was better than that available for the general Congoese,
whilst pioneer missionaries and engineers had at times nothing better
to offer their sick.

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 61

resulted in whole districts being demoralized. It is the
incidence of these deplorable conditions about him that
sharpened Young's pen in writing home about a Presby-
terian Synod meeting of which he had read in his Langholm
paper. He found that a motion had been brought
forward to exclude any drink-seller from a place on the
Mission Board of the U.P. Church. He was disappointed
to learn that the motion had been lost, and comments
indignantly upon any church member having part in a
traffic the ominous consequences of which were only
too plainly discernible in the life about him. And what
he saw was a sorry picture. " Down here where the
natives come so much into contact with the trader and
the State (Belgian) Official, they are even more degraded
than those in the interior [and he had by that time shed
any illusions he might once have had anent the Arcadian
simplicity of the happy, untouched African] where
they do not so often meet with the white man. Going
over among the native towns round here [i.e. in the
trading official's sphere of influence] on a Sunday the
day off for the worker . . . most of the men are, I
believe, generally drunk." As a white man, and as a
Christian, he felt sick and sore at what was both a blot
upon European civilization and a barrier to the progress
of the country, whether social or religious. How far
such a state of things was the result of crass stupidity
on the part of the Europeans and how far due to
calculated policy, we cannot say. Probably it was
mainly the former. The desire of dividend-earning
companies to get rich quickly precluded any thought-
out scheme.

There is, however, a theory held even to-day by a certain
section of Europeans that for the maintenance of their
trade supremacy, a disintegration of the social fabric

62 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

in the country where such trade is to be pushed, is an
advantage. Travelling in 1922 with a highly educated
French river-boat captain, a delightful man in many
respects, I mentioned the large amount of opium that
was being smoked quite openly in the Chinese third-
class cabin. " Ah, yes," was the reply, " but they do
not smoke enough." Seeing my surprise he calmly
unfolded the thesis given above. An opium-smoking,
bandit-infested, divided China meant retarded industrial
development, and consequently a continued dependence
upon foreign imports. A regenerated China meant a
rapid development of Chinese industrial enterprises in
conditions of security and peace which would soon
exclude the foreign import, stop the looms of Lyons and
Roubaix, and result in industrial calamity to France.
The argument, granted certain premises, was quite
logical 'and quite inhuman. The speaker would have
none of my contention that a developed China meant a
higher standard of living and an increased purchasing
power. How far such considerations may have con-
sciously influenced the European trader, or the Belgian
State officials in Congoland in 1890, is a question. That
it had a certain amount of unconscious influence is almost
certain : which is one reason why the Congo Free State
stood to gain when control passed from the private
commissions of King Leopold to the public control of the
Belgian Assembly, where some approach to an open
ventilation of these questions was possible.

The bent of Andrew Young's mind to what was to be
his life's work became stronger as the months passed.
The desperate plight of these poor people in their bodily
distress appealed to him increasingly. He began to
make a practice on Sundays, after helping in the main
general religious morning service, of walking up the hill

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 63

to the railway " hospital " to do what he could, unoffi-
cially, for the sufferers there.

His " medical " work was of course a medical missionary
work : he held services regularly with the patients, and
distributed large numbers of English tracts, which the
patients could read easily, he found, and with which his
friends and neighbours of the English Baptist Mission
kindly supplied him. By April he is clear as to his
future line of service : " If I am spared to come home
after three years I should like to take a course in medicine
as a medical missionary."

March, 1891, marked a great event in the history of
the Congo. " Last Friday, for the first time, the scream
of a locomotive was heard by the inhabitants of Matadi,
and the engine commenced its first short run as far as
the rails are laid about two miles." Young's description
of the effect of the moving iron monster upon the natives
is very racy.

He was inclined to think occasionally that the coast
boys working in the Matadi railway sheds were " Gospel-
hardened ". They were glib enough in Christian phraseo-
logy, but he felt it was merely a convention with them.
" Somehow it sounds awfully incongruous to me when a
fervent ' Amen ' and pious talk come from breath which
smells strongly of gin, and that is what you find amongst
the coast men." Yet in spite of these feelings of dis-
couragement, when in September the railway construction
sheds had been moved four miles up-country to the
Mposo river, he eagerly followed as a gospel preacher.
Amongst the workers were some four hundred Sierra Leone
men, most of whom understood English, and the majority
of whom Young believed to be Christians. So he left the

64 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

Matadi Sunday service to the A.B.M.U. missionary and
tramped to the new centre. He got about sixty to his
first service, some of them members of the Church
Missionary Society at Sierra Leone. They had a great
time together and the men were eager that he should
return the following Sunday. There was need of all
that he could do to counteract evil influencesi A bar
had been opened specially for Sierra Leone men, who
were greatly addicted to drink. " I had occasion to be
in there one day and it was almost like hell upon earth,
with these men yelling and carousing. I was glad to get
out when my business was done."

In October there was a report that the State intended
removing the tax on liquor, 1 which, although heavy,
was not, Young thought, heavy enough. "The King
of the Belgians, who rules the State, professes to be
friendly to missions, but does not look like it in his
actions." The missionaries considered that they, on
the contrary, were taxed far too heavily, especially as
they were bringing money into the country and making
nothing out of it financially. " It would be a good thing
if the State would break down, and some other power
take the Government into its hands." This was before
the days of ruined districts and the rubber shame, when
thousands in Europe hung their heads at the thought of
the wretched country delivered into the grip of the Leopold
who knew no shame for himself.

During Young's third year in the country the Belgian
Railway Company found that its supply of labour was
drying up one can hardly wonder, reading between the

1 And this notwithstanding the statements of reliable writers that
" from the first the Belgians did more to restrict the gin trade than
almost any other nation," If such conditions were to be found where
there were efforts to restrict the traffic, one wonders what were the
conditions in areas where no such attempts were made.

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 65

lines of these letters and reports appeared in the news-
papers from home that " The King of Dahomey is making
raids into French Congo in the interest of the railway
company." On this subject Young writes : " Well, I
do not know how, they were procured, but I do know that
there are a good many about two hundred men, and
women too from the King of Dahomey, and I believe
six or seven hundred more are coming by the next boat.
They are nominally engaged for seven years, which really
means that most of them are there for life. They are the
wildest, most untaught set of people I ever saw."

It was in October, 1892, when returning to Matadi
from one of his numerous trips in search of workmen,
that he found there had been a fearful accident upon
the new railway, which, amongst other results, had
nearly destroyed the house upon which he had so long
laboured. Two railway wagons loaded with eight tons
of gunpowder had only just cleared the nearest corner
from the house when there was a fearful roar of an
explosion, the powder having been probably fired by a
spark from the engine. The engine-driver was found in
a terrible condition, and died two hours later. Six or
seven men who had been sitting on the top of the gun-
powder barrels were blown to fragments. The shock
was felt for miles around Matadi. A month later an
even more terrible accident occurred through a train
going at full speed dashing into a truck of dynamite
which was being unloaded. Four whites and sixteen
coastmen were killed and others terribly wounded.

In October this future missionary to China saw some
five hundred Chinese disembark from a steamer which
had come direct from China to Congo bringing workmen
for the State railway construction work. This was quite
a new departure, and great things were expected from

E

66 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

the newcomers as they had a name for diligence and
hardiness. A previous experiment of bringing negroes
from Barbados had been a failure, since they could
stand the climate no better than could Europeans.
These experiments became all the more necessary as
the feeling between the State officials and the country
people grew steadily worse. In whatever direction
travellers went they noticed the growing exasperation.
" We came past one place where the townspeople had
closed the roads, though they had nothing against us
personally." The Zanzibar! mercenaries of the State
looked upon the country folk as their lawful prey in the
same way that China's " armed coolies " of to-day
regard the decent peasantry of the land. More and
more frequent grew the cases of brutal assault by the
Zanzibaris upon the local women, assaults that were
usually followed by reprisals from husbands who " saw
red".

Long before this date however, as early, indeed, as
March, 1891, Andrew Young was realising afresh the
need of bringing the whole resources of the Christian
Church under contribution if the expansion of Christianity
was ever to be more than sporadic. He still believed
that such expansion was not only possible in itself, but
vital for the very life of the church, and this in spite
of his clearer ideas of the enormous obstacles to be
faced. For Congo was only one part of the problem.
Whereas on the Congo the main enemies to be faced
were inertia and ignorance, active and intelligent opposi-
tion were to be encountered on the Ganges and the
Yangtze-kiang. Yet he believed that the evangelization
of the whole world was possible provided that the total

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 67

Christian resources were marshalled. And looking back
on his Church experience in Scotland, he sees that they
are not marshalled^, and he grows hot about it. This
pioneer who never spares himself has no intention of
sparing the men and women at the home base, if he
can by any means break through their heavy complacence
and sting them into a self-accusing activity. Hearing
of a prayer meeting for missions that his friends
had succeeded in introducing in the local church, he
writes : "A prayer meeting not once a year, but once a
week is needed ; nay, there ought to be a special prayer
meeting for missions in the house of every Christian
every day, and until this living interest is manifested
by the Church of Christ in its great work, missions will
never ,be successful as they ought to be. ... When the
members of the Church realize that the sum total of
their duty is not (merely) to get under an able and
eloquent minister . . . but that they are bought with
the precious blood of Christ in order that their whole
life may be devoted to the furthering of His cause, then
when such is the attitude of the Church, will the Kingdom
of Jesus be rapidly extended. . . . How much there is
to admire in the attitude of the early Church . . . how
the spreading abroad of the glad tidings seemed to be
the one thing which bulked largely in their minds."

In a work as limited in space as this present volume,
one can only here and there quote Andrew Young on
this question, but for a true perspective of the man's
life the reader needs to remember that in every letter
he writes this is the major theme. The accurate
observation, the pungent criticism, the humour and the
pathos which make up the bulk of the correspondence,
are all woven around this central idea the supreme
urgency of extending the Kingdom of God. Having

68 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

once given his strength and powers to a certain work,
he had no idea of accepting defeat nor of enduring
unnecessary delay.

It was in the first week in May, 1891, that Dr. Guinness,
the Director of the Congo-Balolo Mission, reached Tun-
duwa. On the same boat were recruits for the A.B.M.U.
and for the Swedish Missionary Society, so that the
largest party of missionaries assembled at any one place
on the Congo up to that time met then in Tunduwa
twenty-one all told.

Dr. Guinness's purpose in visiting the Congo was to
survey the ground with a view to the Mission's future
extension and usefulness. With this end in view he
visited the various stations, holding sectional conferences
with the missionaries wherever possible. As a medical
man who was also concerned in missionary enterprise,
he was further anxious to study tropical diseases, and
in particular that known as sleeping sickness, a disease
then little understood, which was taking heavy toll of
the Congo native life.

The complicated arrangements for such a tour made
heavy demands upon Andrew Young's time and business
ability. His knowledge of Congo conditions, not only
around Matadi, where he could work with facility, but
in distant centres where the local conditions were strange
to him, was severely taxed. It was in connection with
this work that he undertook the earliest of those forced
marches which grew to be such a feature of his life both
in Congo and in China.

The cold, dry season which came on in May tried him
more than the heat. The temperature on the Congo in
June he found to be about the same as that of Scotland
in summer. The cool breezes at night " almost blow
through one ". He had to take a caravan up country, to

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 69

Banza Manteka, to meet Dr. Guinness, who had gone
ahead on a tour of inspection. On the first day out he
walked twenty-five miles over a very ragged and steep
road. One of the hills he had to climb was much higher
than any of those near his home in Langholm, but he
found that he walked with less fatigue in Congo than
over the Scottish hills. " I did not feel the least tired.
I pitched my tent by the side of a stream, looked after
'chop', fixed my bed, and, in fact, made myself com-
fortable. We had a small service, one of my boys
taking it before retiring to rest." He had come, however,
without a mosquito net to any old hand in the East
this sounds almost incredible and was bitten and
tormented all night. On the second day he hurried,
arriving at Bembesi at midday, and before nightfall
reached a Free State Rest-house (the " dak bungalow "
of the Congo) by the Luvu River. Here he met a Banza
Manteka caravan going westward, the head-man of which
was a Christian. Young was greatly cheered to find
how quickly and naturally this head-man entered into
conversation with some of his own carriers on the question
of Christianity, for by this time, though he could not
himself conduct a service in the colloquial, he could
follow the drift of an address or conversation. Starting
from Luvu at 6 a.m., he reached his destination at
10 a.m., having marched a hundred and ten miles over
rough hill paths in little over two days. No wonder he
thinks gratefully of his boyish tramps in the Border
country at home.

Banza Manteka was the centre of a very real Christian
movement, although the people of the district were of a
distinctly lower type than those about Matadi. In five
years a church of two hundred and fifty members had
been gathered, several of whom were doing good work

70 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

as evangelists, and a church building which could hold
about five hundred people had been erected. " It is
wonderful what a change has been wrought in the people,
who are naturally much worse to deal with than those
farther up the river. Before the revival they were the
greatest thieves, liars, and swearers, but now you may
leave your boxes open all around and you will not get
anything stolen, which has been proved in many
instances."

There was considerable sleeping sickness in the district,
which was one of the main reasons for Dr. Guinness's
continued stay there. The whole party finally went
on to Lukunga, three or four days farther up-river,
where they had a nasty experience in paying off their
carriers. A quarrel amongst these latter about the
division of some cloth led to a free fight, and the whole
twenty of them went into it with sticks, " good and
hard ". " In these cases," says Young, " actions speak
louder than words. If we had not forced them apart
and pushed them all over the place, they might soon
have taken to knives, as each of them carries his knife,
and when the passion of these untutored heathen is
roused they will use anything, regardless of the con-
sequences. After some trouble we got them pacified
and sent off." Once separated, the late combatants
went off together in quite a friendly fashion.

Young was much impressed by the Lukunga work of
the A.B.M.U., and says, shrewdly, that it had evidently
been purified by some persecution from without which
it had had to endure. He appreciated the Christianity
which cost its adherent something. He was particularly
taken with the power of self-propagation in the work
in this district. Members of the congregation did not
leave preaching to the official evangelists as at Banza

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 71

Manteka but recognized it as a duty for themselves
individually. In this way the gospel spread over wide
areas, unvisited up to that time by the British mission-
aries, and " every now and then Mr. Hoste or Mr. Ricketts
(the missionaries of the station) find it necessary to go
out to some of the more distant towns to baptize some
converts " towns which they previously had not visited.
Communion was celebrated every Sunday, the church
building was overcrowded, and it was proposed to erect
a new and larger one immediately.

Young left the party at Lukunga, and on his return
journey to Matadi, with no European companions, he
was caught in a heavy rain storm, which, in the dry
season, was quite unexpected and against which he had
no protection. A sharp bout of fever was the result, but
as he came across no tree under which he could find
shade, he tramped on, aching in every limb. He managed
to buy a paw-paw (a kind of melon) from a carrier, and
then, feeling weary again, "I took a leaflet which I
happened to have in my pocket, containing a copy of
a hymn you know 'Ye're a' welcome hame,' to the
tune of ' The Auld Hoose ' and I shouted and sang
at the pitch of my voice ". (To the Congo carrier, as to
the Chinese coolie, all foreigners are mad to begin with,
so that any further antics do not disturb them.) He
persevered " until the singing seemed to act upon me
so as partly to dispel my weariness, and I moved along
a good deal more blithely than I had since morning."
Here we have a vigorous illustration of Livingstone's
teaching, that in fever one must keep up one's spirits.
He held a service for his men at the midday rest by the
roadside (at half-past two in the afternoon !), and he
kept the fever at bay by his determined cheerfulness,
reaching Banza Manteka about half-past eleven next

72 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

day, an hour after meeting Mr. G. R. R. Cameron of the
B.M.S. That evening the fever came on again, and in
order to break it up thoroughly he took fifty or sixty
grains of quinine, " and it knocked me off my head a
bit, so that I had to keep to my bed all next day. I was
all right, however, the following day, and ready to start."
After looking into the whole situation of the Congo-
Balolo Mission, and after full discussion, it had been
decided that Dr. Guinness should recommend to the
Home Board that Matadi, not Lukunga, should be made
the head-quarters of the Mission. (The field of the
Congo-Balolo Mission was far up-river, and even the
Matadi station was not needed after the completion of
the railway, though it held an important place in the
Mission's counsels in Andrew Young's day.) This meant
that Young would be permanently at Matadi and would
be given a decent house in place of his corrugated-iron
shack. He was evidently much more enthusiastic about
Matadi after having had an opportunity to compare it
with other stations, and quite happy about remaining
there. The one thing he regretted was that his transport
work would be so increased that his opportunity of
" direct missionary work " would be curtailed. He
looked forward with glee to the arrival of the building
materials promised him. " I wish they were here. . . .
I thoroughly enjoy building when I have plenty of
material." (No breaking up of personal boxes now
in order to find nails with which to fix a sheet of iron
to a post.) A new man was to go to Lukunga on transport
work, who could also act as " emergency " in case Morgan
or Young should be sick or need a change.

In August he was still feeling the biting winds keenly,
and piling on all the clothing he could, " wearing as
much clothing in tropical Central Africa as I used to do

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 73

during the cold winters at home thick lamb's wool
underclothing as well as thick woollen outer clothing."
One wonders what the Congo natives do in such
circumstances.

Just before Christmas, 1891, there occurred the first
breach in the ranks of the Congo-Balolo Mission when
Mr. McKittrick, who had come out as the leader of the
Mission's first party, died of the dreaded blackwater
(hsematuric) fever. A day or two later came the news
of another victim, Mr. Luff, who had died of the same
disease on the 19th of December, at Stanley Pool.

In February Dr. Guinness returned from his tour. He
had had repeated bouts of sickness, and had lost two
stone in weight. McKittrick had died by his side on
the road, and soon after leaving Wathen he had received
news that Percy Comber, of the B.M.S., had died there.
Percy Comber was the last of a family of four three
brothers who had laid down their lives on the Congo
field, and a sister who had died at Cameroons. Mrs. Percy
Comber had died a year previously after only six months
in the country. Dr. Guinness had no sooner reached
Matadi than news came of yet another death, this time
of a Swedish missionary. The way all this affects
Andrew Young is seen in his words : "May those of us
who remain be stirred up to greater faithfulness . . . may
we be enabled to do our Master faithful service. Pray
that the breaches may soon be filled up and the numbers
largely increased."

On leaving Africa, Dr. Guinness left Young a " Materia
Medica," and a work on therapeutics, whilst a medicine
chest had already arrived for him from home. " I intend
studying the books carefully in order to understand
thoroughly how to use the drugs and so be able to help
those round about." It is evident that the trend to

74 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

future medical work is now fixed. An outbreak of
sickness amongst his staff, which kept him busy both
as doctor and nurse, only served to strengthen his
resolve.

The new house was up by March, and he moved into
it after sixteen months of his iron shack. How much
toil and patience that house represented he alone knew.
The Accra carpenter had needed unceasing supervision.
Young himself had no practical knowledge of building,
but a Mr. Kuno, a member of a small American neighbour-
ing mission, having technical knowledge, offered his
services, which were gratefully accepted, and so the house
was built.

One of the A.B.M.U. missionaries, a man of his own
age with whom he had often worked, died in March,
another victim of haematuric fever. At the same time
Young learned of the death of C. H. Spurgeon, and
entered keenly into the sense of loss experienced by
the fighting ranks at home. " May God Himself raise
up a like faithful ambassador of Christ to take his place,
and may He help us all to work faithfully while our day
lasts " is his prayer.

On his twenty-second birthday, in April, 1892, he who
had so often wondered at his own good health went under
with a fever, which began in the ordinary way. The
temperature, however, ran up to 106 degress and there
was violent vomiting. By Saturday it was still above
105 degrees. Three neighbouring missionaries nursed him,
and it was " owing to their prayers and work, and to
your prayers also", he tells his parents, "that I have
got through it ". After three weeks he managed to get
across the river to Vivi a pleasant spot on a high
plateau for a change, and was welcomed by Mr. and
Mrs. Walrath of the Bishop Taylor's Mission. The

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 75

lady, fortunately for the convalescent, was both a quali-
fied doctor of medicine and an excellent cook, and he
was tempted to eat again. " I have never had such food
since I came to Congo," says the poor man who had
lived so long as a bachelor in an iron shack. Glad to
increase his usefulness in any way possible, he took
advantage of his stay in Vivi to take cookery lessons
from Mrs. Walrath. His chief concern was to keep his
folk at home from being anxious about his state, and to
discover the lesson which he was sure God wished him
to learn from this sickness. " Out here, with so much
business, building, and so on, one's spiritual life is apt
to get languid, so the Lord in His love has sometimes to
lay us aside for a while in order to draw us nearer to
Himself. That is undoubtedly the end He had in view
in laying me aside, and I thank Him now that He did
it. He doeth all things well."

How small the world was growing even in the spring
of 1892 is shown in reading of the H.B.M.S. Thrush,
"whose late Commander had been Prince George of
Wales ", being sent up to Boma by the Governor of Sierra
Leone to demand from the Belgian Governor of the Free
State an account of the treatment accorded to Sierra
Leone workmen by Zanzibar! soldiers at Matadi. The
affair had arisen from the determination of the Sierra Leone
men to return before the expiration of their term, as
they were thoroughly sick of the treatment they were
receiving from the railway people. Young and a Mr.
Leger of the A.B.M.U. had housed and doctored some
Sierra Leone men who had been badly injured by Zanzi-
bari musket butts. The Zanzibaris had been within
their legal rights, but their wanton cruelty had sickened
the two white witnesses. Two of the Sierra Leone men
had managed to escape, and now, safe in British

76 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

territory, had hugely exaggerated the account of their
ill-treatment. "They had been met with a hail of
bullets." (Young says only one shot was fired, and that
a blank cartridge.) The result, however, was the appear-
ance of a British man-of-war in Boma. Think of it !
What would not British merchants and travellers in
China, who have to dodge brigands and soldiers when
they can, and take their medicine when they can't,
give for such prompt assistance as was rendered these
African subjects of Britain ? Young and Leger having
been cited as witnesses by the Sierra Leone men, the
Belgian Governor sent a small steam launch to Matadi
to bring them down to Boma. They regarded this
chance of a " joy ride " with great glee. " We were
quite ready to go, especially as we had some business to
do down there and did not at all object to going down
at the State's expense." (They were so heavily taxed
by the State at every turn, and here was a chance of
getting a bit of their money back.) They made their
declaration in the presence of the Governor and the
Commander of the man-of-war Prince George of Wales'
successor and the Commander very kindly invited them
to visit his boat the next morning. This they did and
had a royal time. One can imagine the very human
delight of the two men who had month after month met
with the scant civility of the Belgian officials in Matadi,
being made to realize constantly that they were regarded
as intruders " foreigners "< when they were thus made
welcome on an English naval vessel, a bit of England
on this far-off river, and to know that the old country
did keep some guard at the river's mouth. Doubtless
it was all very human ; and one is quite sure that it did
them ever so much good.
In June Young went down to Mukimvika, near the

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 77

coast, for convalescence. He had to stay a week at the
hotel in Banana, and thoroughly disliked it and its
elaborate food. Some of us, less regenerate, can remem-
ber yet the way in which we wallowed in a " pukka "
foreign hotel after years in the interior well-trained
waiters, iced lemon-squashes, afternoon tea, fresh maga-
zines from home, and an orchestra. But these things,
or such of them as Banana offered, were wasted on this
visitor from Matadi. It is some consolation to know
that, having fled from Banana to the missionary house
at Mukimvika, he thoroughly appreciated " the nice
warm tea" which the brethren there had prepared for
him ; no afternoon tea in an hotel lounge, but a sensible,
sit-down affair with solid comforts attached.

Wandering around Mukimvika gave him furiously to
think. " It seemed like yesterday when I had gone
over the same spots before. The twenty months which
had elapsed between just seemed like nothing. Yet so
many things have happened in them." He realized in
Mukimvika that he had become somewhat of a raga-
muffin. " Mrs. Harvey was so kind as to mend some
of my torn garments, no small service, as I seem to
have a talent for tearing them on every possible occasion,
which unhappily is not made up for by a talent for
mending." He enjoyed the change and rest of this visit
greatly, and finally left with all sorts of baggage ; sweet
potatoes, no less than five monkeys, and the good things
with which his kind hosts loaded him up.

And so back to Matadi, where he was now quite one of
the old hands. So thoroughly had he entered into the
evangelistic side of the Mission's work that it is not
surprising that the Belgian officials in business correspond-
ence at times addressed him as " Le Reverend Pre de la
Congo Balolo Mission", though it always seemed to

78 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

amuse the young missionary himself. The Customs
insisted upon copies, written out in French, of all invoices
for goods coming into the country, and as the Mission
often had two or three hundred packages on the monthly
boat, he, as transport officer, had a great deal of transla-
tion work, and was thankful for a sound knowledge of
French. By this time his own grasp of Fioto (or the
Ki-Kongo language) was thorough, and he did most of
his work in it, besides preaching in it daily.

It was whilst he himself was thus glorying in his power
to preach the Good News he so loved to the people around
him that he received word of a spiritual revival in Lang-
holm, and that, amongst others, his brother Jamie and
sister Janet had realized the blessings of Christian con-
viction. He writes : " I am broken up for very joy by
the news. It is the best news I have ever received since
I received the news of a free Salvation for myself."

In October he planned to go to Lukunga for a month
or more in order to organize an improved transport
service, as it was growing increasingly difficult for the
missionaries there to obtain carriers. Carriers, as a class,
were falling so much into the power of the State officials
that they scarcely dared to take service with other people.
Arrived at the Lukunga district he visited an outstation,
Banza Nsanda, which was in charge of an evangelist named
Lutete, an able and devoted worker of proved courage
who had braved death repeatedly for his Master's sake.
On one occasion an incensed opponent came along with
his gun, vowing that he would shoot the evangelist if he
dared to ring the chapel bell as a call to worship. " All
right, shoot away, I shall ring the bell all the same," was
the reply. The bell was rung and the enemy, on coming
forward to the door in order to enter the church on his
hostile mission, fell down on the doorstep and died.

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 79

Opposition only helped forward this church's life. Within
two years one hundred and forty members had been
gathered together out of the district, many of whom had
to bear persecution similar to that faced by their leader,
who in spite of his remarkable experiences remained
" such a humble-minded fellow. He does not seem to have
the slightest atom of pride about him."

This stay with Lutete was an immense refreshment to
the man whose time had perforce to be given up so much
to business wrangles over transport and taxes, and who
saw so much of the seamy side of life at Matadi. One of
the things which greatly cheered him was the testimony
given by some of the candidates for baptism who dated
their first interest in the Gospel from some occasion when
they heard it preached whilst acting as carriers. Such
testimonies brought great happiness to the missionary
whose work consisted so largely in the organizing of
caravans.

As the Mission grew, the need of a larger launch for
the work on the Upper River became imperative, since
the little Pioneer, which had done hard service for some
years, was found too small and too slow. The new
steamer would have to be sent overland in parts. This
would probably necessitate hiring carriers for about
two thousand loads, so that Young had to extend his
transport arrangements and also go up to Lukunga and
there erect a new house and store. But before doing so, in
order to strengthen the transport service in the Matadi
district, he made his way in February, 1893, to Diadia, on
the north bank of the river, where he managed to obtain
land and to secure the friendship of the native chiefs so
that he might start a new transport station. The new
station became known as Kinganga. It was on this
trip that he came across the Snapes, of Bishop Taylor's

80 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

mission. He found Mrs. Snape looking very weak and
ill, and this led him into some plain speaking on the
question of " self-supporting " missions. Bishop Taylor's
workers had no allowance, but were expected, as far as
they could, to make a living off the soil. " This may do
elsewhere," writes Young, " but it is utterly impossible
on the Congo, where it takes all the strength of the
missionary to do his missionary work if he is to accom-
plish anything. The result is that the Bishop's mission-
aries are often in very straitened circumstances, almost
face to face with starvation. This was the case with
poor Mrs. Snape, and I believe that the real cause of her
illness was simply want of food."

In view of unavoidable loss of life experienced by
missions which took such reasonable precautions as were
possible, these strictures cannot be considered as unduly
severe, for it was in this same month of February that
news of further deaths amongst mission workers reached
him, leading him to write : " Truly mission work here
is costly, but it seems to me that the result to be achieved
justifies the cost. It is the Lord's will that the Gospel
should be preached to every creature, and we live but
to carry out that Will." Looking back on the Congo
missions to-day we can agree with this statement, though
the reading of these letters of the 'nineties is at times
sad, sad work.

One is thankful for the note that Bishop Taylor's
mission was afterwards given up.

In April, when Young had further business in Diadia,
he had, for various reasons, to make a forced march,
going from half-past five in the morning until eight at
night, with only a short midday rest for chop and as
always tramping it himself, whilst for the last two
hours he went by torchlight, the darkness being dense.

TRANSPORT AGENT TO MEDICAL AMATEUR 81

He did forty miks that day, and the next day hurried on
again until he reached Diadia.

These Diadia journeys were not without adventure,
The wild animal life of Congo had become so regular a
feature of Young's daily experience that he gradually
omitted reference to it, or did so very casually. As an
example of the casualness, take this account of a journey
on which he found difficulty in obtaining carriers and
food on the road owing to " the neighbourhood being
infested with wild elephants". I remember in North
Borneo visiting an exasperated rubber planter who
referred in the same disrespectful way to the pest of
orang-outangs which had lately been playing havoc with
his young coco-nut trees. These utterances would be
regarded as sacrilegious by a horrified big-game hunter
anxious for preserved areas, and indignant over ruthless
extinctions. It is instructive also to remember that in
addition to the hunter and the planter and the missionary,
there is also the elephant. And there is the elephant's
point of view.

On the Diadia trip, however, the animals met with
were neither apes nor elephants. The first attack was
from " driver " ants which they had unwittingly dis-
turbed when camping in an empty and disused native
hut. The second was from a hippopotamus. They had
started late in the afternoon to cross the river, and it had
grown dark ere they approached the opposite bank.
Suddenly they were startled by a blowing sound, followed
by a subdued roar in the water close to them. The boys
were terrified, and stood not upon the order of their going.
" The moment the canoe touched land they were out of
it." The hippo was an enemy they knew of old, and knew
only too well, as he was often the aggressor, attacking
canoes and breaking them to pieces with his powerful jaws.

F

82 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

The opportunity of preaching on virgin soil supplied
by the establishment of the new Kinganga station meant
much to him. He felt that whoever might permanently
take over this work which he had established would
have a fine field of labour. But preaching and transport
and adventurous travel were all alike ruthlessly inter-
rupted when he was laid low by a severe attack of
hsematuric fever which nearly cost him his life. When
he could be moved he was sent down to the coast, and
from there by the first available boat made his way home.

CHAPTER 111
The Congo Adventure

Teaching, Preaching and Healing

WHILST on furlough Young had informed the Congo-
Balolo Mission Board of his idea of taking a medical
course. Dr. Guinness had however so pressed the claim
of the mission for an experienced transport worker that
Young reluctantly put aside, for the time being, his plan
of working for a medical degree.

Upon his return to Congo the Mission asked him to
give some months entirely to the evangelistic work
around Lukunga until Morgan, the transport man whom
he was ultimately to succeed there, was able to hand
things over. It is important, in understanding what
follows, to keep in mind that during his second term on
the Congo such business management and transport work
as he had was wholly subsidiary to preaching, church
organization and medical work.

He was appointed not to the Matadi he knew so well
and where his health had been so wonderfully good, but
to Lukunga about a hundred and eighty miles away in
the interior, which seems to have been a death trap for
the C.B.M. and the A.B.M.U. alike.

During the last days of July in 1894 he was on board
a boat which made its way between the horrible

83

84 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

mangrove swamps at the mouth of the Congo River
between Banana and Quassanga, and soon found himself
once more in Matadi. It seemed strange to be a visitor
in the house he himself had built, and to see his old
work being run by another man.

Near Matadi he met a friend of his first term, Mr.
Harvey, of the A.B.M.U., who made a deeper impression
on him than any one missionary in Africa. It was on a
short trip which they made together at this time that
Mr. Harvey told him of one of the Christians from his
own station at Banza Manteka. The man had been
seized with sleeping sickness. When he saw that there
was no hope of his recovery he went to the missionary and
offered to go to England in order that the doctors there
might hold a post-mortem examination of his body, to
try and discover the cause of this disease; and taking
leave of his wife and child, he went. " To any one,"
comments Young, " who knows the superstitious horror
that the Congos have of cutting a dead body, this
will convey some idea of the power of the love of
Christ which could constrain a man to make such a
sacrifice."

At Palabala, an A.B.M.U. station near Matadi, Young
felt that the work was less prosperous than it had been
formerly and that there was evidence of neglect. And
as he proceeded farther on his journey to Lukunga,
meeting here and there some native evangelist or foreign
missionary, and hearing their stories, he realized afresh
how strong were the forces which the Gospel had to
combat.

This time he had returned to the country from a land
where, in spite of the many failures and shortcomings of
the organized Church, there is yet a Christian sentiment
spread abroad which makes impossible on a large and

TEACHING, PREACHING AND HEALING 85

unrestrained scale certain dark aspects of life which
seemed more vivid than ever in Africa, And his
responsibility for order in the Church was more direct
now. His preaching was the only foreign preaching
which his mission could hope to give to that district.
And how feeble it seemed to this merciless self
critic !

It is to be noted here that his work for the first time
was almost entirely evangelistic. He was neither doing
transport work nor his amateur medical work, but
preaching and teaching continously. The " business "
work which he had in his earlier term deplored no longer
acted as a safety valve. That work, which he had at
times deemed uninspiring, had, within its limits, truly
held an inspiration ; the inspiration of tangible, visible,
actual results. Two hundred cases unloaded into the
store meant a definite contribution to the whole work of
the mission ; a caravan safely organized and started on
its way meant another small triumph over those perver-
sities of temper, inertia, and circumstance whereby Africa
manifested her opposition to the New Kingdom a
Kingdom of the Spirit. After days of such work the
man went to bed healthily tired. He might cry " How
long, Lord ? " anent the whole question of Gospel
penetration into this dark region, but at least he had
little to worry over as to his particular work's thorough-
ness. But now, engaged in evangelistic work, he sees
little that is tangible in the way of results. He was far
too much of a Christian, a gentleman, and a thinker, to
descend to cheap eiiorts of mass suggestion, in order to
obtain " statistics " to forward home for the uncritical
lip-smacking of readers who demand " results " at all
costs. He had said at an earlier date, referring to the
lack of response to appeals for Christian living addressed

86 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

to the assemblage of Coast men at the Matadi services :
*' I suppose one could get these people to stand up and
profess Christ in the meetings, but what value would it
have, what amount of reality would be at the back of
it ? " And so now, when his whole time is given to
work directly psychical and spiritual, he will not use
the cheap way of the mob persuader, he is true to
his commission " to persuade men " men, not an
hysteria-affected crowd the members of which would
bring to the consideration of the question immediately
facing them only a limited portion of their personality,
having whole areas of their normal judgment under
inhibition.

Naturally he saw little result of his work at first. He
was not a man of " magnetic personality," it took time
for his African hearers to realize how sterling were his
qualities. And until the time came when they brought
to the consideration of their teacher's message a quiet,
sympathetic hearing, he saw no souls saved. Day after
day passed and the sky was brass, physically and
metaphorically. Was the fault not in him? "We
are not straitened in Christ, but we are straitened in
ourselves."

Had God found him an unprofitable servant, to the
point of uselessness ? Was he unemployable ?

It is easy to say that such thoughts are unwise, largely
the outcome of physical unfitness, the result of a lack of
historical perspective and a philosophical training. To
a certain extent such criticism is true. But these harrow-
ing thoughts, weakening though they may be, have a
function though like certain medicaments they are
dangerous if indulged in unduly they preserved the
worker in the mental field from a too easy-going com-
placency. " We preach the word and leave the results

TEACHING, PREACHING AND HEALING 87

to the Lord " is a phrase that may belong to simple faith
allied to a good work on well thought-out lines. And
such a trust makes for a wise preservation of energy. But
the phrase can be, and alas, at times is, whether at home
or on the mission field, merely a fatuous, meaningless
cliche used as a soporific by those whose work has become
mechanical, having no adaptation to the immediate
situation, and with no ring of personal spiritual con-^
viction about it. To avoid this latter state even the
costly nerve-wearing questioning described above is
worth while. And thus so devoted and earnest a soul as
Andrew Young found himself attacked, even as his
Saviour centuries previously had been, by the great
enemy who " did his best to spoil my work for the Lord
by whispering into my mind evil and distrustful
thoughts." The very sensitiveness of this disciple's
soul, by virtue of which he had his communion with
heaven, left him open to the attacks of the Prince of the
Power of the Air.

By November, 1894, he was in the dark valley fighting
Apollyon for his very soul as Bernard and Martin
Luther and many another saint had fought before him.
" I have had a dark time spiritually this last month, and
during that time I have had such a vision of my own
heart and life as I never had before. I have been shown
by the Spirit of God what a wretchedly low life I have
been living spiritually. I saw that instead of a desire
for the glory of God having been my motive there was a
desire to get people to think well of me." This unassum-
ing man who shrank from the faintest show of recognition
and had almost a genius for self-effacement ! The clouds
lift, however. " But I thank Jesus that according to His
own promise He did not suffer me to be tempted above
what I was able."

ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

" Is this torture of a soul necessary ? " one asks.
What is gained by it ? Where is the spiritual advance ?
Andrew Young found his answer to these questions,
and to him the gain was worth the suffering. " I am
glad now that He opened my eyes because it shows me
how I need Him, and how hopeless it is to go forward in
one's own strength." The growth of a soul, like all
growth, has its pains. A fortnight later, however, the
clouds had cleared and the sun shone. " What a blessed
thing that through whatever varieties of experience one
may pass, and however one's feelings may change, Jesus
always remains the same, unchanging, unchangeable in
His affection."

A part of the direct pastoral work which cost him a
great deal was the disciplining of church members*
Preaching the Word and seeing men and women enter
the church was not all ; there was also the oversight of
the flock. Reproof, rebuke, exhortation were needed to
guard the young church's purity. And also at times
there came the heart-breaking need of expulsion. To a
tender heart like his, for whom membership with the
church of Christ was a treasure second only to union with
Christ himself, such a duty meant torture. Some in the
church had to be suspended from membership. One
woman had to be put out of the church for immorality.
There were curiously difficult cases involving questions
of trivial law and custom which needed very careful
handling, and he had to do a great deal of " palaver "
work (the lawsuit work of the Congo) in which he
practically acted as a magistrate for his people. " One
realises in dealing with these churches just emerging from
heathenism, as one cannot possibly do at home, what
Paul meant by the words ' besides that which cometh on
me daily, the care of all the churches '."

TEACHING, PREACHING AND HEALING 89

Fortunately for his mental comfort his medical work
now began to grow, keeping him so busy affording
immediate relief to suffering bodies that the respite from
self-questioning which had previously been supplied by
his transport work was to some extent found anew.
Happily also this medical work brought gleams of humour
with it, as instanced by the following : "A great many
people, unexpectedly enough, suffer from nervous
troubles, and bromide of potassium works wonders with
them. Sometimes when the natives get hold of one of
our commoner remedies they take to treating one another.
One man had learned that mustard was good for in-
flammation of the lungs, and on a friend being seized
with a severe attack of this, the first named tied his
friend's hands securely so that he could not move them,
and plastering some mustard on a cloth, slapped it on the
bare skin on both sides of the chest, and I think let it
remain there all night I You can imagine the poor
fellow's sufferings, lying there the whole night unable to
move. From what he told me, his chest measurement
the morning after must have been about double what it
usually was. It cured his inflammation, but that was
distinctly a case in which it could have been said that the
cure was worse than the disease."

By January he had been asked, and had consented,
to take over the entire medical work of the Lukunga
station, as Dr. Jackson, who had had the work up till
then, had gone home, and Mr. Hoste, the missionary
in charge under the A.B.M.U., had his hands full of
other work.

Sleeping sickness had become a scourge amongst the
church members. " The death roll of church members
last year was exceptionally high. In fact, as many were

carried off last year as in all the six preceding years put

90 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

together. Sleeping sickness has accounted for a good
many. I am afraid that my house-boy, Toto, is going
into it. He displays symptoms of it already. The cause
and cure of this disease are both a mystery to medical
men. It only attacks natives and is always fatal, so
that one can do nothing except mitigate the symptoms.
These are generally fever, an intolerable itching all
over the body, and an irresistible tendency to sleep,
which increases as the disease progresses. In some
cases the patient goes wrong in mind before the end.
Some of the brightest Christians, both here (i.e. in
Lukunga) and at Banza Manteka have been removed
by it."

In February he follows this up by reverting to his old
idea of coming home for a medical course. His previous
desire he had put aside, as we have seen, in deference
to Dr. Guinness's contention that the transport work
required him more than ever, and so had returned to
Congo. But he found that the need could be otherwise
met, and the way seemed clear for him : " I see more
than ever how much need there is for a skilled medical
man among these people. ..." Meanwhile the church
at Lukunga started a Total Abstinence Society, whose
objects included not only abstinence from foreign gin
and rum, but also from the native palm wine. In one
church at least this had even been made a condition of
church membership, so demoralized had the community
generally become through the ravages of drink. With
regard to the palm wine pledge (which was evidently an
innovation) Young wrote : u It is not so much palm
wine drinking in itself as the customs with which it is
connected that are objectionable, and the way it brings
the Christian into close contact with the heathen." The
idea underlying the pledge was, "it is good neither to eat

TEACHING, PREACHING AND HEALING 91

flesh nor to drink wine nor to do anything whereby thy
brother stumbleth or is offended or is made weak."
Evidently a palm wine party in Congo, like the old-world
feasts at Corinth, meant such a general lowering of
standards as to make it almost impossible for the
Christians present to steer clear of the license which
followed in its wake. The only safe course was to keep
away altogether. Yet the question was far from simple.
" It (palm wine) is really their only beverage besides
water, and it is very refreshing. If always taken
fresh it would be all right, as it is not intoxicating
until it ferments. But it is nearly always drunk when
fermented, and is the cause of a good deal of drunken-

ness."

The preacher's enemies were occasionally found in
other than the spiritual realm. In November he was
driven out of one town by the populace, who gathered
round him in an angry mob, with guns and spears. Two
weeks later, in another town, he recognized the mob's
leader, who was at the moment peacefully selling kwanga,
the large puddings made from cassava. When recognized,
the man evidently felt in a tight place, since Young, with
the law on his side, a plenitude of witnesses for the law
court, and a friendly population at his back, could have
sent him to jail. Instead, he explained to him Christ's
teaching of returning good for evil. " Before he went
away I gave him a present, at which he seemed quite
nonplussed. I told him that that was how God had
treated us when we had hated Him. He had given His
well-beloved Son to die for us that we might be saved.
I trust that this occurrence will be the means of blessing
to that man and his town."

By November it seemed probable that the Mission
would be so well supplied with transport workers that

92 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

Young, who up to that time had been freed for evangel-
istic work, might be set aside for such work altogether.
" I don't know what I will be led to do after the transport
needs me no longer, and, after all, it is not much use
looking so far ahead. The Lord has promised to direct
our steps that is, a step at a time." The sooner a
missionary learns this lesson the better for his peace
of mind.

As matters went, however, he was after all given the
Lukunga transport work when Mr. Morgan, who till
then had been in charge of it, was removed to Matadi,
and there took over Young's old work. It was a heavy
task that the Congo-Balolo missionary in Lukunga now
undertook. He was medical officer, he had gradually
undertaken a large amount of church work which he
could not now discard, and he was once again store-
keeper and transport agent. Morgan and he had a busy
week taking stock, as there was over a thousand pounds
worth of mixed goods in the store.

But there was a further complication. The Congo-
Balolo was not the only mission in Lukunga. The
American Baptist Missionary Union had a large work
in the town under the superintendence of Mr. Hoste, an
Englishman a brother of the present Director of the
China Inland Mission, He had been in Lukunga for ten
years without a break, and was worn out. He was urged
to take a holiday at Las Palmas, in the Canaries, since
it seemed impossible to send an A.B.M.U. worker to
replace him should he take a full furlough. His friend
in the Congo-Balolo Mission realized his state, but
writing of it, says : " Just now, however, there is nobody
here to take his place, or I believe he would go to Las
Palmas." At a later date Mr. Hoste consented to leave
for a three-months' change, but this was only possible

TEACHING, PREACHING AND HEALING 93

because Young, in addition to his large Congo-Balolo
load, agreed to take over Mr. Hoste's burden in the
A.B.M.U. interests.

In March, 1895, he gives a description of his day's
work. By this time he had decided to resign from the
C.B.M. and its transport work, and to get home as soon
as he could for full medical training. Meanwhile he held
the fort alone, doing church, medical, and transport
work on behalf of both missions. " I am getting any
amount of practice in medical work just now, and with
the work as a whole am pretty well kept going from
morning till night. My day begins about half past five,
and from then till seven o'clock I devote the time to
private devotions and preparation for the morning service.
Then, after breakfast, if there are no carriers to attend
to, I have another hour of preparation. We have service
at half-past nine. There is not much of an attendance
at these weekday services, chiefly workmen and boys
belonging to the stations, as the people in the towns have
their work, such as it is, to attend to, although a few of
them are generally here after medicine. After the service
I attend to the medical work, which occupies me till
nearly twelve o'clock, which is our dinner time. I tell
you, it would almost turn your stomach to look at some
of the ulcers and sores that are brought here for treat-
ment. They are just a mass of putridity and corruption.
I think many of them are due to the taint handed
down to them by parents, and are the result of the sins
of the forefathers. I think these people suffer far more
from their climate, as a general rule, than we do. In
the cases of many of them it just seems to be husband
and wife time about with fever. It does not, however,
seem to prostrate them nor leave them so weak as it does
in the case of a white man."

94 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

On his twenty-sixth birthday he wrote that his parish
was thirty miles in diameter, and involved long marches,
generally going at top speed, to cover all his church and
medical work.

In June, when the cold weather set in, he was kept
busy with sickness, which attacked both natives and
Europeans, particularly the former, who suffered in large
numbers from pleurisy and pneumonia.

Mr. Hoste returned in August, but Young's burden
did not seem to lighten, as he found that he could
not free himself from the increasing medical work,
whilst the church work of the A.B.M.U. steadily
absorbed his sympathies. Mr. Hoste therefore urged
him, since he knew the station's great need, to
definitely join the A.B.M.U., to give up his dream
of a medical course at home and to settle down in
Lukunga.

One of the reasons which weighed heavily with him in
considering this proposal was that he seemed able, more
than most Europeans, to stand the climate. (In view
of what followed this seems piteous.) An early mail from
the United States brought him an official invitation from
the Board of the A.B.M.U. to join their staff. His
resignation from the Congo-Balolo Mission was carried
through with all good feeling on both sides. That
Mission now had all the transport workers it required,
whilst Dr. Guinness, from personal knowledge, could
realize how great was the A.B.M.U. need in Lukunga.
Andrew Young's acceptance of the A.B.M.U. invitation
marked the beginning of his close connection with
the Christian churches of the United States of
America, whose people he so much liked for their
freedom from affectation, their simplicity and their
heartiness quite apart from the fact that Dr. Charlotte

TEACHING, PREACHING AND HEALING 95

Murdoch, who appeared on the scene later, hailed from
Maryland.

In Lukunga the days sped by. His store-helpers
worked as well as he could make them, the house-boy
cooked and swept, load after load brought through the
jungle by his caravans filled the store, which was emptied
again as the stations farther up-country sent in their
requests. Disputes between carriers, grievances amongst
workmen, precautions against robberies, all took up
time. The medical work grew more and more. It was
increasingly difficult to confine it to certain hours of the
day : who can close down when " emergency cases,"
brought in slung hammocks over many weary forest
miles, come in outside " consulting hours " ?

But greater than any other responsibility was that of
an overseer of the flock of God, " the care of the churches,"
involving constant decisions which might, humanly
speaking, make or mar a soul. It is easy to say that we
must not take ourselves too seriously, that "we can
only do our best and leave it". At twenty-six, with no
colleague at hand to consult, lacking the guidance of
precedents and the philosophy which the years bring,
the burden was almost unbearable. Always by deed
and word there was the main objective to be more nearly
approached, to make Jesus known to these children of
Africa. Each day seemed as full as it could be, and yet
each day had to have a little more crammed into it.
And the full days passed into weeks, and the weeks into
months, until he seemed to have been for ever and ever
by that brown, rolling river.

And then, having gone down to Matadi on business in
October, 1895, covering the ground at double speed, he
went down with hsematuric fever in the old station
where so many of his African years had been spent. He

96 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

was carefully nursed by the missionaries there, yet it was
a wonder that he lived at all.

But God had work yet for his servant to do on this
earth before his translation.

We are told that overwork never harmed anybody
yet ; that before the point arrives when harm would
ensue, fatigue warns us and we desist. This, however,
leaves out of account the reinforcement coming from
desire or from conscience, which can so stimulate, so
make a demand upon our reserves, that the inhibition of
fatigue is negatived for a time at least. The " carrying
on " of soldiers in the Great War, who practically slept
on their feet, is a case in point ; the sustained attention
of the air pilot looking for a suitable landing-place, the
extra strain put upon the nurse whose relief cannot
take her place, are further illustrations. Andrew Young
was similarly left without relief. The fatigue which
gave him timely warning was disregarded, overborne
by a sense of duty which held that the work must
go on.

Many of us listen to that warning of fatigue as readily
as we obey the dinner gong. We, of course, are " the
reasonable people", who look after ourselves. Andrew
Young was of other and sterner stuff. What happened
in his case, not once but two or three times, was that
the mind, in obedience to conscience, forced the body to
use up all the reserve of which even his unusually fine
physique was capable. And when muscles and heart
and nerves had all done their utmost, and the mind still
refused to accept the situation or to acknowledge a
physical bankruptcy, the brain used its final flicker
of strength to send a last reserve along the nerve.
Fumblingly, almost blindly, and with enforced pauses,
the limbs would obey the message thus sent. In later

TEACHING, PREACHING AND HEALING 97

years a decision that should have been made in two
minutes would take two hours ; an operation that,
when he was fresh, would have taken him a quarter
of an hour, would go on far into the night, as the
piteous frame craving, pleading, crying out almost
vocally for respite, obeyed the relentless will. Under
such conditions, when the collapse did come it was
utter.

Eight months later he was on the Albertville returning
from a short time at home. Sick and near to death as he
had been, his virile constitution seemed now quite
restored. His mind seemed, if possible, fresher than
ever. Certainly he showed advance in judgment and
in grasp. There is a maturity and an increased note
of competence about him, as he faces his post as a
recognized evangelistic missionary of the A.B.M.U.

He sailed from Antwerp. The Albertville was a new
liner and there was a great stir on board, for the heir-
apparent to the Belgian throne, Prince Albert, was
expected to go with her for the first few miles out in
order to give the ship a send-off. It was about noon
before the great man made his appearance. "He is
quite a young fellow, rather nice-looking, and seemed
very free and affable to all with whom he engaged in
conversation." How little any. of the passengers there
thought of the part that unostentatious figure would
play eighteen years later. The disrespectful Andrew
writes : " We were heartily glad to see the last of
him and his retinue, because their being on board
made us about three hours late for our midday meal
(the Prince's lunch had upset the ordinary arrange-
ments), which we did not get till four o'clock." Such
is the gratitude to be expected by affable, self-denying
princes.

G

98 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

Before reaching Matadi (either at Mukimvika or
Boma) he was staggered by the news that his colleague
Mr. Hoste was only awaiting his arrival to start out for
England, and that it was possible, if not probable, that
he would not be able to return to Congo. As he had
looked forward with such confident pleasure to working
with Mr. Hoste, Young was extremely disappointed.
Knowing, too, what Lukunga meant, he was appalled at
the thought of being left in sole charge of all its A.B.M.U.
work. But he speaks very bravely and simply about
it all.

As he had to make a forced march to Lukunga to
relieve Mr. Hoste, Mr. Bain of the A.B.M.U., Matadi,
knowing the situation, insisted on Young's using a
hammock (i.e. being carried by porters), a thing he had
never done before in all his Congo travel. The reason
he allowed himself to be persuaded in this instance is
interesting. " I consented to take one because I felt
that if I should happen to get sick at all, people would
at once say it was because I had not taken a hammock
and had overtaxed my strength. I feel sure of the
Lord's protection as long as He has work for me here,
but that makes me more, instead of less, careful, because
I feel that my body belongs to Him, and has to be used
and taken care of as being His property." The sanctified
common sense of this wise man of twenty-six might well
be copied by missionaries generally.

It was on this trip that he had a happy rencontre
with a Belgian State official which evidently pleased
him greatly. The relations between the missionaries
and the State officials at that time so seldom got beyond
a strained courtesy that one is delighted to find this
little interlude. "Next morning we got up betimes,
but some time elapsed before I could get started. After

TEACHING, PREACHING AND HEALING 99

walking and riding by turns for about three hours I came
in sight of a State station at Congo da Lemba, built on
the top of the hill on a very fertile plateau devoted to
the cultivation of coffee, cocoa, and vegetables of different
kinds. The Belgian official in charge seemed a nice
fellow and welcomed me heartily, asking me to stay to
lunch with him, which I consented to do. He took me
round his plantation, where he has a lot of coffee planted
out, as well as tomatoes, lettuce and other vegetables.
He insisted on my taking some lettuce and fine large
tomatoes on the road with me, which I did not require
much persuasion to do, as I am very fond of the latter
especially. He could not talk much English, but we
got along fairly well in spite of that."

The missionaries may have been at times too quick
to see evil where the Belgian motives were innocent.
Most of them would have had little continental experience.
The State officials on their side suspected the missionaries
of fomenting an independent spirit amongst the Congos
which made the enforcement of State regulations more
difficult. Probably the missionaries, who at first had
hoped that the Africans would be so greatly benefited
morally and economically by the government of a Free
State, realized that the hour must come, sooner or later,
when witnesses of the unwarranted and unprovoked
oppression of which the natives were the victims must
raise their voices. But except in one or two most rare
instances they exercised a wise restraint, and as far as
their own convenience was concerned, they accepted
the State's ruling without demur.

His new method of alternate walking and riding was
approved by our Spartan friend. He had not anticipated
comfort from being carried, and he had probably felt the
sturdy Scot's distaste for what appeared an effeminate

100 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

mode of conveyance. But he had the good sense to
acknowledge that he had been mistaken, and was shrewd
enough to see where his work might be helped. " I
found the hammock a much more comfortable and easy
means of locomotion than I had anticipated. It was
a good rest between times of walking, and when I got
to the end of a day's journey I always felt quite fresh
and not in the slightest degree fatigued" that is to
say he was all the fitter to undertake the immediate
duty awaiting him.

In his China journeys he still tramped a great deal,
but he generally did so leading a pony, or he had a cart
near at hand. One of the points about a Chinese pony,
as far as the itinerant missionary is concerned, is whether
he will follow on a rein easily or whether he has to be
incessantly " lugged " along by an exasperated owner.
In the latter case he should be sold immediately, lest
the missionary's temper surfer permanent injury.

On this journey he made a point of calling at Kimbunga,
a station worked by Mr. Sjoholm, his old Swedish friend
at Diadia, who had helped him when founding the
Kinganga Station. Young's comment on the policy
followed by the Swedish Mission is interesting, especially
to those acquainted with the work of the Wathen and
Yakusu stations of the B.M.S., where the policy
deliberately adopted and successfully carried through
was the one which Young here criticizes a criticism in
which he voices the opinion, in particular, of the " un-
denominational " missions. He writes : " Mr. Sjoholm
is now in charge of Kimbunga, and is assisted by four
others, two ladies and two men. They have been
having a good deal of encouragement lately in the way
of additions to their numbers. They, however, go on
the system which has been discarded at Lukunga, viz.,

TEACHING, PREACHING AND HEALING 101

of keeping boys on the station in a boarding school and
teaching them there. This is a very expensive system,
and I don't think the results of it are very satisfactory.' '
When Dr. Holman Bentley, one of the great statesmen
of the B.M.S., founded the Wathen work, he laid his plans
clearly before the Society, pointing out the expense and
the ten silent and apparently unproductive years to be
anticipated. The Society had the generous insight
necessary, and accepted the scheme. Ten years went
by with hardly any results, and then the teachers and
evangelists, the well-trained products of those years,
began to put in their work, and the Wathen Church,
born of the Spirit, carefully nurtured, well equipped,
has gone on its wonderful career ever since.

The sight of Lu'kunga called up strong emotion.
" Next morning I was pretty early afoot, as I wanted
to get in here as early as possible. About eight o'clock,
I suppose, I came in sight of the old place about an hour
away. As I drew near I saw Hoste approaching, he
having come out to meet me. I need not say how glad
I was to shake hands with him again, but I was sorry
to see that he was looking anything but well. Very much
changed he seemed from the time when I last saw him.
As we went up he told me that he was feeling very much
played out, and therefore purposed getting away as soon
as arrangements could be made. We had a long talk
about the work here, which does not appear to be in a
very flourishing state at present from a human point of
view ; in fact, the arch enemy seems to have been doing
his best to disorganize the work and discourage the
workers."

It was a sad welcome back and a far greater strain on
'the younger man than he knew, whilst the tale of disap-
pointment and setbacks in the church was a heavy

102 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

handicap for him in his new course. There is an almost
desolate note about his brief comment : "So all prepara-
tions having been made, and the loads given out on
Friday night, next morning at about eight o'clock he (i.e.
Mr. Hoste) started, and I was left here alone except for
Mr. Hawkins, a coloured man, 1 who is in charge of the
A.P.C.M. transport. He will probably be going in the
course of a month or two."

He found a sense of spiritual drowsiness abroad amongst
the Christians, but says: " It is easy enough to exercise
faith when all things go smoothly; in fact there is then
hardly any exercise of faith needed." However, it was
not all dark. The church supported three evangelists.
" One hopeful feature about the evangelists is the
opposition they meet with. Sometimes they have been
badly knocked about and wounded, but in spite of this
they shew no inclination to leave the work."

The days went by, filled with labour : the medical work,
the business side inseparable from any mission station,
the daily preaching, the long marches to out-stations,
and the nerve-wrecking " palavers ", trying to settle
recondite questions often dependent upon native customs
too obscure for any foreigner to trace. And then, at a
time when the reserves of even his magnificent physique
were used up, the dreaded hsematuric fever again came
upon him. There was no European at hand, but Mantu
Parkinson, the first baptized Congo convert of the B.M.S.,
was acting as transport agent of that society in Lukunga.
He took over the work until help came from down-river,
whilst he and the Congo " boys " tended Young as well as
they were able. They sent down a message to Wathen,
the English Baptist Mission station, for help, and
Young's old friend, G. R. R. Cameron, went up at speed
1 An agent of the Southern Presbyterian Mission. (U.S.A.)

TEACHING, PREACHING AND HEALING 103

to nurse him. The fever was defeated yet once more,
but this time the resilience was very, very slow. Mr.
Bain, of his own Mission in Matadi, had come up, on
hearing of Young's illness, to take charge of the work in
Lukunga, and he also contracted the fever, so that
Cameron had two patients in succession. Till Mr. Bain
was up and about again Young managed to hold on, but
the worn-out body which had so valiantly marched
countless miles in the suffocating bush, and under a
tropical sun, was down and out this time : the gallant
spirit which had kept fevers at bay by sheer pluck and
endurance, singing most untunefully, " Ye're a' welcome
hame," the spirit which had forced the spent frame over
weary miles to save sick bodies and to comfort sick
souls the spirit was all out of him now. He went up
to the B.M.S. station at Wathen, hoping that the change
and rest might help him, but a black depression followed
him. To the missionaries there it was evident that he
needed his home climate and a thorough rest, and they
wisely persuaded him that for the sake of his future
usefulness it was his duty to set out for England. One
of their number travelled with him from Wathen to the
railway, and the next letter home is dated from the
coast, four months after his illness.

Nature meant to save this goodly specimen for future
work, and the only way to do so was by making it im-
possible for him to flog the poor tired nerves and limbs
to further effort. But the fighting warrior of Jesus thus
laid low could at the time see his weakness only as a
sign of unworthiness. He felt that he must have gone
wrong somewhere, he must have been self-indulgent,
" I have thought more of eating and drinking than of
anything else." Dear saint, who had grown " quite
fond of tea, but of course did not take it three or four

104 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

times a day, as some do, as it must make one nervous."
This is the man who sees sin in having thought more of
eating and drinking than of anything else !

In the depths of black depression one of his greatest
troubles is that he cannot cheer up his folks at home by
a shining assurance. There is not much wrong with
any man who thus obstinately refuses to become an
egotist.

" I know, dear father and mother, it seems hard of me
to write like this, but I cannot pretend to be what I am
not, and write in a hypocritical strain. May God Himself
support and strengthen you continually, and dear Christy
and Jamie, and Janet, and Archie, and John." His
heart he describes as " hard, stubborn, and rebellious,"
but they are not to be anxious about him, for " every-
thing is in God's hands, and He will do all for the best."
easily satisfied, complacent church folk, whose religion
is so thoroughly comfortable, for whom the life of the
soul is a pleasant Sunday afternoon, give thanks to God
for the saints who go into the dark places of the earth
and do battle with the powers of darkness there, and
who remind us that there is still heroism in following
Jesus !

And we pigmy people, with our easy assurances and
our facile self-excusings, who do our frontier defence
work by proxy may we at least retain this amount of
virtue : that when we see the Greathearts of our warfare
battling with Apollyon, we acknowledge a nobility, a
steadfastness, a courage and an endurance, which we,
alas, do not share, but which we recognise to be a glory
and a triumph.

The Congo Adventure was ended. To attempt a

TEACHING, PREACHING AND HEALING 105

further stay in the country after a third attack of
hsematuric fever would have been suicide. His way was
clear at last. The impulse to medical service which had
grown increasingly during his Congo years could be
obeyed now with a clear conscience. With a prayer for
the country he loved and which he had so nobly served,
Andrew Young turned his face toward home and to a new
epoch.

PART II
IN CHINA'S EMPIRE

CHAPTER IV
Eastward Ho!

UPON the years which Andrew Young spent in training
for his further missionary career there is no need to
dwell. They had their own interests and brought their
own developments, but they hold nothing distinctive for
our present purpose. He studied in Glasgow. He had
money sufficient for a few months only, but he had faith
in his call, and went forward. When his store was
finished he most unexpectedly obtained a post at
Quarrier's Orphan Homes. Accepting this post involved
rising at four in the morning in order to study, since all
his spare afternoons, in addition to evening work, which
often lasted until midnight, were needed by the Homes.
He held meetings, was responsible personally for many
of the boys, had to superintend meals, as well as to
hunt up truants. It was the last task which involved
the late hours.

The directors were as considerate as was possible, and
at times they paid his salary in advance when fees for
his classes were due.

In spite of his arduous days, he stood high in his
classes. It makes brave reading, this story of working
one's way through college, and yet one regrets the
necessity. It makes for self-denial, self-reliance and
self-discipline. But there are heavy penalties. The

109

110 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

strain is too great. Nature has a way of demanding
payment for neglect of her desire for relaxation, joy and
leisureliness, It was impossible to keep pace with his
many interests. His cousin says, " He was always for-
getting things and dropping them, too things like his
watch." Keys he found it most difficult to keep in an
easily located place. He had neither strength nor time
to spend keeping his own room comfortable. Also, the
habit of mind then formed, of accepting the responsibility
of several tasks at the one period, had its dangers. The
time came on the mission field when it would have been
wiser for him to define sharply such work as he felt he
could carry out with comfort, and to refuse firmly to
undertake more, but by that time he was so accustomed
to working up to the limit of time and strength that it
never occurred to him to refuse a new task. A good
physique and great natural abilities carried him through
scenes of exceptional stress for many years, but the time
came when the mind found routine work which ought to
have been well within its compass a pressing load by
reason of the manifold cares under which it laboured. 1

After qualifying, he had house-surgeon's duties in the
General Hospital and in the Ophthalmic. Following on
this he took two positions as locum-tenens, the first at
Abertillery, in Wales, the second at Rochdale. After
Rochdale he went to London, where he specialized in
diseases of the eye.

In October, 1904, the need of a medical man to work
with Dr. Edwards in the hospital at Shou Yang, in

1 This absent-mindedness was natural to Andrew Young to begin
with. The question here is whether the double work in Glasgow
accentuated it.

EASTWARD HO! Ill

Shansi, was advertised in the Student Movement. This
attracted his attention, since Dr. Edwards's name was
well known to the missionary enthusiast who, having
lived in Rochdale, had inevitably come into contact
with the Kemp family, to which Mrs. Edwards belonged.
By November, 1904, he wrote from London that the
matter was definitely settled, though various duties
would keep him in England for some months. By
October, 1905, his way was clear, and he set sail for
Shanghai on the Prinz Heinrich.

The difference between sailing south for the Congo and
east for China or India is the difference between the
simple and the complex. In the one case the emphasis
is laid upon the call for initiative, in the other upon the
call for adaptation. In saying which there is no sugges-
tion that the work by the equator calls for less than
the full quota of the brains and the statesmanship of
men of the highest calibre witness the work of such
men as Holman Bentley, Mackay of Uganda and the
great Livingstone himself. The point is that the ground,
comparatively speaking, is clear. " Comparatively,"
because the more we come to know of African life the
more evident it becomes that the tribal customs, taboos,
sanctions and social structure are far more elaborate and
pervasive than they appear to the casual coast observer ;
" clear " because the social or religious innovator pro-
ceeding to Congo has no such ancient civilisation as that
of India or China to face ; no articulated system of
religion such as that of the Hindu, Confucianist or the
Neo-Buddhist.

The missionary going to the East has from the com-
mencement the knowledge that the land to which he goes
is already possessed, though not fully developed, by
religious, ethical and social theories other than his own.

112 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

Andrew Young was not the man to be unduly swayed
by the findings, still less by the theories, of the science
of Comparative Religion, yet he certainly would not
follow the policy of ignoring established facts which
might clash with his preconceptions. His preparation
for the East had included a certain amount of reading
upon the religious and social systems at work in China,
which, whilst in no sense a deterrent to his zeal for
service, yet enabled him from the beginning to under-
stand the complexity of such service,

Each stop on the journey from Port Said onward
deepened and confirmed such understanding. He must
be a man triply armoured in prejudice, and insulated by
a lack of imagination, who can make the Suez journey
from England to Shanghai without being shaken in his
complacent assurance as to the Occidental's superiority
to the "dreaming East". And this new traveller on that
route had proved in African jungle and on Dutch and
Belgian liners, that he was the last to miss the lesson of
the prosaic fact, that he could go far in appreciation of
the forces, physical and psychological, which lay behind
the fact. By the time he had reached Shanghai, he was
already richer in equipment than on leaving London. His
letters written en route are full of racy description, and
to anyone who knows this route well and has hung about
for many weary days in Port Sai'd, Singapore and Hong
Kong, it is amazing to find out from these letters how
much there is of interest and pleasure which the careless
observer has omitted.

Andrew Young's foremost interests on the voyage
were the progress of the missionary agents at each port,
and such medical work as he could investigate. It was
the trained medical, as well as the novelty-hunting
tourist, that prowled about the winding heights of those

'%

J

EASTWARD HO ! 113

Genoese back streets made gay with the family wash ; or
the bazaars of Colombo where flies carry disease in
spite of all that a paternal government and a step-
motherly municipality can contrive. But he has also
much to say on the scenery, architecture, trade and
customs of the various places visited.

No long sea voyage available to the ordinary passenger
to-day can compare for colour and variety with this
London to Yokohama trip, broken as it is by the frequent
calls at ports in which every hour of the day is crammed
with interest. Spain, Italy, Egypt, Arabia, Ceylon,
Malay, the mysterious blue mountain ranges of the
Dutch Indies, China and Japan one gets glimpses of
them all Our traveller on this trip stopped short of
Japan, but he garnered an amazing amount of treasure
from the remainder of the journey.

At Hong Kong came his first introduction to Chinese
Medical Missionary work. Here, in the London Mission-
ary Society's Hospital, he met Dr. Gibson, an old fellow-
student. It was as well that he had had a short turn
round Victoria Road and a Hong-Kong street or two
first. Once he came into touch with this medical work
he was captured, and only just managed to reach the
steamer again as the gangway was being loosened,
" having spent a very pleasant and profitable time."

At Shanghai, where he had intended to catch a Tientsin
steamer in order to reach Tai Yuan, the capital of Shansi,
he received a wire from Dr. Edwards of that city asking
him if he would go temporarily to Sianfu, the capital
of Shensi, as the Mission there was in urgent need of
help. This meant a radical change of plan, a long
separation from his heavy luggage and from redirected
letters, which would find him only after many days.
It is the sort of contretemps which so many Indian Civil

H

114 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

servants, army officers, business folk and missionaries in
the East are meeting constantly, and in which an equable
temperament and a not undue sense of one's own self-
importance are valuable. Young took it all very calmly,
and had " no doubt that the change of destination will
serve some wise purpose ". Years later he would remind
us humorously that we in Shensi must treat him respect-
fully, or he would pack up his traps and make for his
real station, which was in Shansi. At the moment of
his changed plans, though writing only from Shanghai,
he still managed to convey to his home people some
Shensi local colour, telling them that Sianfu is the ancient
capital of China, the place to which the Empress Dowager
fled from Peking in 1900 after the Boxer defeat.

Happily for him Young reached Shanghai before the
electric trams had spoilt its streets, and before the great
Maloo the Nanking Road had become a place of the
quick and the dead ; that is, those who got out of the
way of the Chinese motor chauffeur and those who
failed to do so. Though Shanghai to-day boasts some
magnificent buildings banks, clubs, municipality offices
and so on-r-its really pleasing quarters are the distant
residential suburbs.

In the comparatively quiet Shanghai of that day
the new-comer speedily got into touch with one of the
greatest souls who ever came from Britain to China, Dr.
Albert G. Parrott. He was a man who knew Shensi
well, having tramped thousands of miles through
the provinces of North- West China as a pioneer of the
China Inland Mission. To the new medical, bewildered
somewhat by a startling change of plan, with no know-
ledge of Shanghai's facilities for the missionary or
Shensi's demands upon him, the friendly aid so freely
offered was invaluable.

EASTWARD HO ! 115

Nor was it only in 1905 that he found " A. G. P.," as
Dr. Parrott was called, a trusty guide. In later years
when difficulties and sorrows gathered thickly, he found
him the ready friend. This cheery Shanghai saint
could be reckoned upon always. Quite half of his
practice was work for which he was never paid ; amongst
poor Chinese, weak Eurasians, down-at-heel Europeans.
He gave unstinting service to the Shantung Road Hospital,
he was one of the main supporters of " The Door of
Hope," whilst in any case for the uplift of the fallen,
one could depend upon " A. G. P." And he simply
lived for Jesus Christ. In all China there could have
been no man more fitted to give Andrew Young what he
needed at that hour. 1

Of the other features of Shanghai life, that which
most impressed him was the weekly prayer meeting of
missionaries, at which there were often a hundred and
fifty present. After the small groups that he had known
in Congo, this seemed a great gathering, and indicative
of the immense amount of organized Christian work,
much of it of a highly-specialized nature, to be found in
China and her dependencies.

In days preceding the Shanghai-Nanking Railway
missionaries who had to pass through Hankow could
count on four delightful days in a river steamer along the
lower Yangtze -kiang. Especially did this trip appeal
to those who were poor sailors and had been conscious
of that fact what time the ocean liner had been thrashing
her way through the tail-end of a typhoon from Hong-
Kong to Shanghai. The blessed relief and quiet of the
Shanghai-Hankow steamer reminded one of the soothing
" after cures " which used to follow a drastic month of

1 Since this book was begun, Dr. A. G. Parrott has died of pneumonia
May, 1923 and for some of us Shanghai "will seem an empty place.

116 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

the waters of Bad Kissingen or a place of similar heroic
treatment. For Young, the main interest of the trip
was the constant comparison that came to his mind
between this great water highway of mid-China and that
mysterious rolling river which bore on its bosom dark
secrets from African forests as it made its sullen way to
the Western sea.

To the ex-Congo missionary the outstanding difference
was the enormous amount of traffic on the Yangtze-kiang.
It is in terms of trade, of tonnage and of riverine popula-
tion that he constantly reverts to the immense difference
between the two rivers.

At that " Chicago " of China, Hankow, he stayed at
the China Inland Mission head-quarters. On the journey
from Shanghai to Sianfu one of the delights of the mis-
sionary is this rest at the C.I.M. home in Hankow. The
C.I.M. numbers many great missionaries in its ranks, and
certainly not the least of them are the men and women
in charge of the homes and transport agencies in such
places as Hankow, Ichang and Tientsin. The traveller
arrives perhaps late at night, or at an unearthly hour in
the morning, sometimes in the horrible clammy rain
which Hankow so well knows, and is met by a quiet,
capable gentleman who takes all troubles off the traveller's
shoulders and, piloting him through the hordes of yelling
rickshaw coolies or boatmen, leads him to a real " home "
the Hankow C.I.M. His luggage is rescued and he
himself is saved from the robbery which would be his
portion without such shepherding. He has a comfort-
able bedroom overlooking a cool, green garden, and he
sinks into a chair and thanks God gratefully for the
haven to which he has come. If he has been up country
for months or years, and the road journey has been hard
on nerves and limbs alike, the C.I.M. is a little heaven

EASTWARD HO! 117

here below. And if he is just out from home and some-
thing of an unlicked cub, apt to take things for granted,
it may be that as these gracious, self -forgetful people
open to him the modest quiet of their home, he will find
grace and the opened eye which begins to discern thus
early in his missionary life that " none of us liveth to
himself".

Before leaving Hankow, Young was privileged to meet
the veteran Dr. Griffith John, still hale and hearty in
spite of over fifty years of work. At that time Dr. John
had not had a furlough for twenty-two years.

Hankow, with its neighbour across the river Wuchang,
the capital of Hupeh makes a great missionary centre,
and the new-comer managed to see a considerable amount
of the work which is carried on there.

Proceeding northwards from Hankow to Chengchow
on the Peking-Hankow Railway, he found another inter-
esting contrast with his Congo experience in the fares
charged to passengers. One hundred and twenty miles
on the Congo Railway had cost him nine pounds, and the
same mileage on the Peking-Hankow Railway cost him
nine shillings. Chengchow is to-day the junction of this
railway and the new line which is to run ultimately from
the East Coast through Honan, Shensi and Kansuh, and
which has already nearly reached the Honan-Shensi
border.

In 1905 one had to go by road from Chengchow to
Sianfu. A young Chinese named Cheng T'ien-yu, who
had been, as a boy, to Spalding Grammar School, came
down to meet him and act as his escort to Sianfu. They
had two Peking carts for themselves and the luggage.
The escort generally called by his first name, T'ien-yu
stuck fairly closely to his cart, but the doctor found
himself driven, by his old love of tramping and his old

118 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

dislike of the cold, to walk until the sun got really warm,
about eleven o'clock. Since one starts about six at the
latest from the Chinese inns, this meant tramping half
the distance. But even in the depth of winter there are
generally two or three hours of good warm sunshine in
North China, during which one can forget the cheerless-
ness of the morning when ice-cold feet occupy " the field
of consciousness," and of the evening when chilblains
mitigate one's welcome of the charcoal brazier.

These are the hours when one marches along the foot
of the Hwa Shan the Flower Mountain ; surely the
loveliest of all China's mountains ? when the air is like
wine, the sky cloudless and the hawks wheel lazily in
the blue. The pine woods which fringe the temples
clinging to the upper heights of the Kin Ling range give
grateful rest to the eyes. The carter nods sleepily on
the cart shafts, the wise mules plod on steadily, their
bells scattering silver sound sufficient only to give a
friendly note in a silence otherwise too impressive. Ah,
but it is good to be alive, to know the joy of blended
colours and the freedom of the open road ! What are
dirty inns and doubtful dishes and the minor ills that
one has met in the miles which lie behind ? They are
all forgotten in the joie-de-vivre of the sun-kissed noon.
It may be pagan, it may be undignified, to the Chinese
carter it is assuredly mere madness ; but the lilt of the
old army march comes back to the mind, and one pounds
away, singing the song that one used to hear so often
roared from a hundred throats, and " you pack up your
troubles in your old kit-bag, and smile, smile, smile."

The man who years before had kept Congo fevers at
bay by singing "Ye're a' welcome hame" at the top

EASTWARD HO I 119

of his voice, was still to make joyful noises in China
in days when he journeyed frequently up and down this
great highway of the North-west. But on this his first
trip everything was so new, so strange, so full of interest
that he had no time to sing he was too busy asking
questions and docketing the answers. One imagines that
the English-speaking Tien-yu snatched but few naps on
that journey. One sight they met was even more de-
pressing than interesting to the new-comer : a group of
criminals by the roadside wearing the "cangue" the
old wooden frame which fitted closely round the neck
and on which was written the story of the prisoner's
wrongdoing.

The Chinese inn becomes such a matter of course to
foreign residents in the interior that one is apt to forget
how strange it may be. Young's description of his first
experience in one is interesting, coming as it does from
an old African traveller. " It was a good sized courtyard,
with rather primitive stalls for the horses and sleeping-
places for travellers. These are huts built of sun-dried
or burned bricks and plastered inside with mud. There
are one or two very rough wooden frames, or sometimes
only mud platforms, covered with mats on which one
can put one's bedding. It is safer, especially in summer,
to put some impervious material between them and the
bedding, as they seem to nourish certain of the undesirable
lower forms of life in great abundance. There is usually
a rough, and not too-clean, wooden table and a stool.
This completes the furnishing. I made a good dinner,
however. It really just felt like being back in Congo
once more," After the long intermediate years it was
good for the man who was a born missionary to feel that
he was on the field once again.

There are certain people in China who, when they go

120 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

on the road, seem always to meet with adventures.
Others go quietly on their way and have no more
untoward happenings than if they were travelling from
Tooting to Hampstead. Young was of the former class.
If there was anything to hurt on the road he seemed to
meet it. On the present journey, whilst in one of the long
Honan defiles where the road is constantly being under-
mined by the water channels (a few feet under the surface),
which cause horrid pits to yawn suddenly in front of the
traveller, his cart overturned, and it was a weary job
getting it right again in those circumstances. Fortunately
both he and the carter were walking at the time. On
another day, the cart overturned whilst he was in it, and
he was fortunate in that no heavy luggage fell on him,
and in being able to crawl out unhurt. One of his trunks
was smashed in the upset, and he realized what a narrow
escape he had had. Reaching Honanfu so often
referred to in modern telegrams anent banditry and
militarism as " Loyang," the name it held formerly when
the capital of China he met the Bloms and Mr. Beinhoff,
of the Swedish Mission in China. The latter he had
known in Glasgow as a fellow medical student ; a student
who had unfortunately not completed his course. Mr.
Beinhoff had been persuaded by Prince Bernadotte of
Sweden to come out to China unqualified medically, on
account of the pressing need of the Swedish Mission.
The Prince was a keen leader of the Y.M.C.A. movement
in Sweden, and the Association was anxious to have its
own evangelistic representative in China. Young knew
by experience what this meant. He himself had been
persuaded at one period by Dr. Guinness to forgo medical
training ; Dr. Parrott, from whom he had lately parted
in Shanghai, had similarly listened to Mr. Hudson
Taylor ; here was a third man denying himself what he

EASTWARD HO! 121

felt to be his real metier, and at times fearing sadly that
he had made a mistake. Of Mr. Blom's friends Young
had known many in his Congo days. One of the happiest
features of our life in Shensi was the very real friendship
we had with our Swedish neighbours, and no one enjoyed
it more than Andrew Young, who for so many years
had found out by experience the brotherliness and the
ability of the Scandinavian Missionaries.

From Honanfu he set out refreshed and encouraged
for the remainder of the journey. As formerly in his
Congo days, so now in China, he found the cold season
a trial, which seems strange considering his Dumfries-
shire extraction. But one cannot have it every way.
He had the great advantage of being able to stand
the trying heat which breaks up some men altogether, and
although the cold was uncomfortable, it was not dis-
abling. He might, if he had known, have congratulated
himself that his first winter was spent in South Shensi
and not in the biting winds which sweep over the snow-
clad mountains of North Shansi, making Tai Yuan Fu
and the Shou Yang, to which he should have gone, very
healthy but bitterly cold.

The old Congo campaigner, accustomed to forced
marches, pushed on in a way that horrified the Chinese
carters. Only once did a member of the Shensi Mission
make that trip in less time, and that was when, to relieve
a man going on furlough, a young colleague coming in a
rush from Shantung dispensed with carts altogether,
and changing horses at the roadside Yamens 1 rode
almost night and day, doing the ten days' journey in
three and a third.

1 An order from the official at Honanfu gave him the right to claim
a fresh horse at the office of the magistrate of each town passed going
westwards until Sianfu was reached.

122 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

For a cart journey, Young made a record. When the
tired carter reached what he considered a reasonable
stopping place, it was to find that the too-energetic
foreigner had already pressed forward, and it was left
to T'ien-yu who, by the way, possessed vociferous
powers of persuasion to induce the carter to follow.
Late one afternoon when they should have stopped it
was to find all the inns already filled, and they had to
push forward for another twelve miles. It was after
eleven at night before they found shelter, having travelled
since seven in the morning, and having covered forty-
seven English miles 1 It is hardly surprising to one who
knows the conditions of Chinese road travel to read
shortly afterwards that " one of the mules died ".. In
his innocence the vigorous traveller never dreamed of
connecting the two events. But there are limits, even
to the endurance of a Chinese mule.

Nearing Sianfu they heard that there had been a
highway robbery the night previous in the district
through which they had to pass. Young's comment on
this reads strangely in these days of the Republic. (He
wrote in the days of the Empire.) "It is quite an
unusual thing for a robbery to take place on the road
in Shensi, though in Honan, through which the first ten
days of our journey lay, there are parts infested with
robbers, so that it is not deemed wise to travel much
after dark." To-day, in 1923, one is sometimes tempted
to wonder if there is any part of China where it is safe
to travel.

They reached Sianfu well before Christmas Day, and
Young found a welcome from Chinese and foreigners
almost embarrassing in its heartiness. Three miles east
of the city a mounted group of missionaries was awaiting
him, as well as a long procession of smiling hospital

EASTWARD HO ! 123

assistants and schoolboys. A feast in Chinese style
was spread that same afternoon, and T'ien-yu's lessons
in chopstick manipulation, added to the fact that they
had consistently taken Chinese food at the inns and
road-side booths on the way up, now stood the doctor
in good stead. The Chinese evangelists, who were his
hosts, were impressed with his adroitness and delighted
to find him so easy to entertain.

And so his journey into a second great continent was
over. Once more he was ready for the great adventure
of the missionary calling.

CHAPTER V

A Member of the Mission

(Ye are Members one. of another)

THE Baptist Missionary Society, under which Young
had gone out to China, is known there where it stands
in contrast to American and Continental Societies as
the " English Baptist Mission " (to the indignation of
its Scottish members when they happen to think of it).

It is the Society founded by Carey, Andrew Fuller,
and other great souls in the eighteenth century. Its
activities in China commenced in 1859, and its early
triumphs are associated with the name of Timothy
Richard. Others worked as nobly and devotedly, but no
other figure so succeeded in impressing itself upon the
Chinese imagination as " Li Timotai ".

In 1891 Moir Duncan and A. G. Shorrock, two members
of this Mission then at Tai Yuan in Shansi, were sent to
open up the Society's work in the neighbouring province
of Shensi, and were shortly afterwards joined there by
the well-known sinologue, Evan Morgan, now of the
Christian Literature Society, Shanghai.

After many years of hard and faithful, and frequently
exciting, labours, the Mission had, before 1900, founded
a church of seven hundred members, supporting its own
pastors, and having primary and high schools both for

124

A MEMBER OF THE MISSION 125

boys and girls. It had its own printing press, a good
book shop, an orphanage and an opium refuge.

The Mission had by that date a recognized position
in the province; it had secured the respect of the
magistracy, and had gained a considerable influence in
both the capital and in the neighbouring county towns.

By 1900 a development which was far overdue the
opening of regular medical work was commenced, and
a doctor had already arrived when the Boxer movement
and the " Kill the Foreigner " edicts made it imperative
for the Yangtze-kiang Viceroys to call all missionaries
in Shensi to the coast.

It was not until the end of 1904 that Dr. Creasy Smith
returned to China accompanied by Mrs. Creasy Smith,
who was a highly trained nurse, and Nurse Turner.
Two young Chinese whom Dr. Smith had taken to
England in 1902 were in the party. One, Mr. (now
Doctor) Li, had for a year been taught dispensing in the
Edinburgh Infirmary ; whilst the younger, Cheng
T'ien-yu, we have already met. 1

H. Stanley Jenkins, M.D., F.R.C.S., the great pioneer
of medical missionary work in North- West China, came
out with this party. ... .

Early in 1905 Dr. Creasy Smith had broken down in
health and subsequently withdrew from the Mission, but
by the summer Stanley Jenkins, although only eight
months in the country, had already acquired a good
command of Chinese vernacular and sufficient knowledge
of the printed character to read his Chinese Bible with
comfort in the ordinary services. With the plucky. help
of the two nurses, of Mr. Li and young T'ien-yu, he had
organized and was running a hospital for both men and
women.

1 See Chapter IV., p. 117.

126 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

The B.M.S. in Shensi had for immediate neighbours
the Scandinavian Alliance Mission, most of whose mem-
bers were Swedes, though there were Norwegians amongst
them. (One sometimes ran up against this latter fact
in those days when Norway had freshly set up an in-
dependent kingdom for herself. ) Most of the missionaries
had been for some years in the United States of America,
between leaving Scandinavia and their arrival in China.
Some were naturalized American citizens.

This Scandinavian Mission is an auxiliary of the China
Inland Mission. It was from C.I.M. pioneers that
Sianfu first heard the Gospel 1 ; but with the noble
se.lf-abnegation which is characteristic of that great
Mission, they had been content to turn over this work
to the Scandinavian brethren. The B.M.S. had mean-
while arrived on the scene and had found a foothold in
Fu Yin Ts'un (The Gospel Village).

As soon as it was at all possible to do regular work in
Sianfu, the provincial capital, the S.A.M. and the B.M.S.
missionaries naturally gravitated to the strategic centre.
By an amicable arrangement the English mission under-
took to work in the east and the north, whilst the
Scandinavians went to the west and the south ; and even
so, the strength of the united missions was far from
adequate to the task before them.

A much older neighbour was the old " Roman Catholic
Mission of South Shensi," in T'ung Yuan Fang* (not far
from Fu Yin Ts'un), which, with its orphanage and
industrial work, formed a regular colony. Its European

1 In those early years it was not possible to maintain any foothold
in the city. The most that could be done was to live in a village
within a thirty miles radius, risking a visit to the city occasionally
until the time came to " occupy " it from a missionary point of view.

2 South Shensi is the official title though actually its strength is in
Central Shensi.

A MEMBER OF THE MISSION 127

staff is supplied by the Foreign Missions of Rome. An
imposing cathedral had been built in T'ung Yuan Fang,
which is the seat of a Vicarate Apostolic, whilst the
handsome church, in Sianfu itself, was one of the most
commanding buildings in the city.

Four days to the west were English C.I.M. workers,
and ten days to the south, near the Szechuan border, at
Hanchung, that Mission had its Shensi head-quarters.

Apart from that of the Roman Catholics all the mission
work in the Shensi province was congregational in church
government, whilst believer's baptism was practised in
all the stations. Even such missions as were themselves
Congregational followed this latter practice, and as a
consequence we were saved from any confusion in the
minds of the Shensi Protestant Christians. These two
Protestant Missions, the C.I.M. (including the S.A.M.
and the E.B.M., had a clear field for twenty years, and
had well-established churches before any new body made
its appearance. In 1913 the Chinese Independent Church,
most of whose early members were B.M.S. converts,
commenced its work, and is to-day a healthy, vigorous
body. In 1916 came the Seventh Day Adventists, and
following them the Chinese Christians of the Episcopal
Church, who came into Sianfu to start a work of their
own, a mission which is doing good service to-day. The
Y.M.C.A. work, for which the B.M.S. first set aside men
as secretaries, has now been taken over entirely by the
National Association.

Every mission grows a tradition of its own. The
Shensi B.M.S. by 1905 had a reputation for cultured
evangelicalism, whilst the word which was stamped upon
the whole work and policy of the Mission was " sound."

128 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

When Young joined the Mission we had a fair average
as to personnel; but there were three outstanding
figures which would have compelled attention in any
circle A. G. Shorrock, Jennie Beckingsale and Stanley
Jenkins. The first of these is to-day where he was
when I first knew him, in Sianfu. He was my first chief
in China and, as such, naturally loomed large. After
nearly twenty years' experience of China, he looms large
still. Despite ill-health resulting from continued over-
strain, he remains to-day in the forefront of the battle.

The second figure was that of Jennie Beckingsale.
Here the attempt was all at repression. The brilliant
wit which leapt out occasionally was generally held in
leash, since in a small community it is not safe to depend
upon the sense of humour being so evenly distributed
that all shall be amused and none shall take offence.
The power of organization which would have been equal
to the demands made by a women's college at home was
deliberately curbed, partly to meet the simple needs of
a young high school in Inland China, a school where a
small budget and a widespread prejudice made it neces-
sary to go slowly, but still more because she aimed at
consolidating a women's mission in Shensi, and in order
to foster enthusiasm for that mission amongst her fellow
English colleagues, she saw to it that the work when done
should be actually, and not nominally, the work of the
group, and not of one person. Jennie Beckingsale was of
that unusual type which the demands of a modern world
are slowly producing, the type which Jesus unceasingly
laboured to produce amongst His disciples, the type
that will go one higher than doing a great piece of work
alone, that will do it in company with others. The
world's need to-day is less for supermen than for team
workers. When the former will deliberately use their

A MEMBER OF THE MISSION 129

native powers of command so that the team shall be
more effective and the superman less conspicuous, then
the coming of the Kingdom of God will be appreciably
hastened.

A Cheltenham woman with the best traditions of her
great college behind her, with the extra discipline of
Oxford (Somerville), she represented exact scholarship
and the cameraderie of the educated woman of to-day at
her best. And with it all went a humble devotion to
the person and programme of her Saviour. Faith was
not easy for her. Her intellectual grasp of the Christian
teaching was not arrived at quickly or easily held : but
she realized the truth of her Lord's promise : " He that
doeth the will of God shall know the doctrine." She,
more than any other in that far-off station, helped to
keep us sane. Deliberately she would turn, on occasion,
from " the work " which we sometimes so fuss over
that we allow it to become an obsession instead of an
occupation and plan a picnic or a simple evening party
where we were helped to forget the things that threatened
to get on our nerves, and to be human and happy and to
go back home feeling that the strain and the problems
that had seemed so important earlier in the day, lived,
after all, mostly in the region of our undue self-importance.
Happy is the mission station that has in it at least one
man or woman who will prick the bubble of that self-
importance for us and do it with a kindliness that leaves
no sting.

Of Stanley Jenkins it is difficult for me to write. To
me he was so near and meant so much. From September,
1904, to February, 1905, we shared the steamer cabin,
the inn room, and a bed-sitting room in a mission com-
pound. For over eight years he was to me the truest,
the most gallant and the most magnanimous friend and

I

130 ANDREW YOUNG OF SKENSI

leader of whom one could dream. Starting even together
upon our quest of Chinese language and life, within three
months I was hopelessly outpaced, but he never allowed
me to feel it ; he was always as he had been. And in a
hundred little ways it was a joy to be of service to him,
to ease the gall of the collar when it was almost unbear-
able. He had had a severe attack of rheumatic fever
shortly before leaving England to come out to China,
and this meant a heart so weakened that sometimes it
seemed as if he could not go on another day. After a
long ride or an exhausting day in the operating theatre,
or a sitting from ten at night until two in the morning
over mission accounts and reports, he would throw him-
self exhausted on a bed, too spent to undress himself,
until the worst of the fatigue was passed. But the
indomitable will would not be denied. When I have
pleaded, almost wept before him, to let the wretched
accounts go or the reports remain unwritten myself
half dead with sleep and wholly rebellious he would
say, " No, it's got to be done ! " And done it was. But
at what a cost !

As a surgeon, an administrator, a preacher, a man of
wide reading, he has had only one rival that I can recall
in our ranks in China. He had not merely a sense of
fun, but the nicest sense of true humour. In his mystical
piety he was of the school of Bernard of Clairvaux, or
perhaps, rather, that more rigid thinker, Francis de
Sales, whose writings he so loved. And added to all this
there was a quality which can only be called "charm",
though for a man who in will and courage seemed compact
of fine steel, such a word seems incongruous.

There was a delightful sense of friendship about that

A MEMBER OF THE MISSION 131

mission, with plenty of the " give and take " of men and
women who had moved about the world freely, and knew
the value of loyalty and mutual consideration. Most of
them had already been taught their limitations through
their intercourse with Chinese friends and neighbours ;
and the others were learning. The man who can live
in close proximity to those shrewdest of critics, the
Chinese house-boy and the Chinese teacher, for twelve
months, and still remain clad in his old conceit, is hopeless.
The staff in 1905, besides those mentioned above,
included the Rev. and Mrs. John Bell, who had arrived
only a few days previously, with Miss Franklin, a recruit
to the Baptist Zenana Mission 1 , Miss Russell (now Mrs.
James Watson) who had been two years in the country,
the Rev. Frank and Mrs. Madeley, who were north of
the Wei River in the Gospel Village, Mrs. Creasy Smith,
Nurse Turner, and myself; whilst shortly afterwards
came the Revs. E. F. Borst-Smith and James Watson.

Amongst this group Andrew Young settled down as a
" member of the mission ". He and Dr. Jenkins lived
together in bachelor style in the hospital. Housekeeping,
Young found to be an easy business after his Congo
experience; in fact, the Chinese cook did the whole
thing. Those were the halcyon days before Shensi was
opened to the outer world to any extent and the province
was at peace. Fuel was dear about twice what it
would have been in England and horse feed was a
heavy item, but the housekeeping bill itself was light.
A chicken cost threepence, a pheasant sixpence, whilst

1 A Society which has since coalesced with the Baptist Missionary
Society, and, is known as the Women's Missionary Association of the
B.M.S.

132 ANDREW YOUNG QF SHENSI

eggs were five for a penny. I know. " Ut ego in Arcadia
vixi" An ordinary Chinese worker in those days could
keep himself for three-halfpence a day. " Each of us
has his own personal boy who does all the looking-after
that we need, including laundry. Mine gets about
half-a-crown a month and his food."

The Baptist Missionary Society has been happy in the
men who, with a Congo experience, have been transferred
to the China field. The Congo climate having made it
impossible for such workers to remain in Africa, and the
North China climate offering no difficulties, these workers,
believing that in their case the call of God was without
repentance and the foreign field their sphere, transferred
from the West of Africa to the East of Asia. Much of
their previous experience was very valuable to them in
their new work. The two civilizations were of vastly
different values probably the Chinese culture would be
horrified at any comparison being made : to the Chinese,
old-world literate or modern westernized student alike,
the Congo has no civilization. But the missionary on the
Congo has at least had the lesson of adaptation to master ;
he has had to rid himself of his insularity (or of as much
of it as grace and humility will accomplish) ; he has had
to watch the struggle of a new religion for its foothold
in a country where the whole outlook and traditions are
antagonistic to its tenets ; he has seen first the gradual
acceptance of that religion by individuals, and secondly
the organization of such individuals into the church, and
if his work has been amongst a virile, well-trained body
of believers he has seen the religion become so far
indigenous as to find its leadership no longer amongst
the foreign missionaries, but the native pastors. And
since no man of sense can go through this last experience
without gaining greatly in wisdom, humility, and the

A MEMBER OF THE MISSION 133

Christian graces, he will bring to a new field, whether
China or elsewhere, far more than can be brought by
the man who comes straight from home.

So much for his advantages. Against that there is
to be set the extra handicap of the language. For him
the first fine frenzy of enthusiasm with which the
missionary attacks his new language went into his Fiote 1 ,
or Ki-Kongo the dialect of the Lower Congo Lokele,
Swahili or whatever the dialect might be. In that he
had attained facility. He could read with ease his New
Testament in its script. And now, at an age more
advanced than that of the average missionary coming
to China, he has to face the new language plus its appalling
ideograph. Young found it no easier than did his fellow
ex-Congo friends. In February, 1907, on the eve of
setting out for the coast to be married, he wrote, " All
last week I spent in the East Suburb (away from the
Hospital) at the study of Chinese. I have gone over
the year's work, but I fear it will be some time ere I am
sufficiently well up to go in for the exam. The Congo
language still retains its hold on me. I can trot out
Congo hymns by the yard ; I think I could speak quite
well in that language still. Indeed, it sometimes comes
out by mistake." It was not until 1908, when Jenkins
was back from his honeymoon, and Dr. G. A. Charter
had been transferred from Shansi to join the Shensi
staff, that the Youngs at last found their real chance of
language study, when they got away from Shensi for a
season. A doctor's one chance for such study is to be
in a place where there are other qualified men to attend
to the sick. 2 On this account, for the average medical

1 Literally " Black man's speech."

2 Stanley Jenkins's case cannot be quoted in this connection. He
was a genius, and one cannot legislate for the general policy of a mission
on such instances.

134 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

man, the new language schools at Peking and Nanking
are useful. In those days there was no such provision,
so the Youngs went to Kuling for the summer, taking
their Shensi language teacher with them. Any missionary
who has been five years in China believes in his heart that
he knows just how the language should be studied, and
perhaps no two men's experiences and ideas on the
subject agree. Young, like most of us, was largely
influenced by his special predilections. Worship with
his household and with the hospital assistants and
patients was one of his chief joys ; to join heartily in
the hymn singing, to know his Chinese New Testament
so well that he could at any time read his verse or a
lesson, were dear ambitions from his early days in the
country, and as a consequence he acquired a large New
Testament vocabulary which opened a door for him
when speaking to Christians. With outsiders he had
not the same easy approach. The medical terms he got
through sheer repetition in his work. For diagnosis and
instructions to his patients he acquired a competent
vocabulary. But since he had practically none of the
leisure necessary for general newspaper (Chinese) reading,
or conversation about such subjects as the newspapers
reported, the language requisite for general conversation
with outsiders came slowly. It came eventually through
two channels ; the constant road journeys in which he
had the opportunity of talking to fellow passengers, and
his increasing intercourse with Republican officials. He
never pretended to master those niceties of tone and
rhythm dear to those who " are not satisfied with a mere
modicum of the language." Of the large specialized
vocabulary requisite for men teaching medicine in such
medical schools as Tsinanfu, he knew, I think, very
little. But two of the linguistic requisites of the

A MEMBER OF THE MISSION 135

missionary he obtained ; he could understand what it
was which the people of the country who came his way,
burdened at heart or suffering from pain and loss, wished
to tell him, and he became a fluent preacher in the
vernacular. For years he was on the regular " preachers'
plan," and he was always a welcome speaker at the
larger assemblies of the church. It was a great joy to
his brethren and an unspeakable advantage to the church
that one with so solid a scriptural training, such a wealth
of Christian experience, had this ministry of the word in
the language of the people. Of Chinese classics, poetry,
and modern language development, he knew no more
than was absolutely essential for his work. One can
only pack a certain amount into one's life, and Andrew
Young's was crammed full enough without gaining the
laurels of the sinologue.

Conformity to regulations in language study is only
one way in which the new-comer " shows willing " as a
member of a mission. To pull together in a remote
province with scarcely any European society outside the
Missions is a work of grace. Each member has his or
her own way of regarding the way in which the work as
a whole should be carried out, and each has to defend
the interests of a particular department evangelistic,
educational, or medical when the services of some
outstanding Chinese assistant are desired or when the
Mission budget is drawn up. And naturally we have
our own pet theories and aversions, our prejudices and
predilections. One man will enjoy a pipe but be horrified
at anything which has a nodding acquaintance with
alcohol, another thinks tobacco a curse, but can see no
harm in Chinese wine when taken at a feast to correct
the greasiness of the food. A third will not hire a cart
on Sunday, but will revel in George Meredith on the

136 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

Monday. A fourth who tells you that " he is no legalist "
and who will cheerfully ride on Sunday, will consider
Meredith a sad waste of time and unworthy of one
called to be a missionary though he himself may weaken
hopelessly when a stray number of Punch appears !
Variety is added occasionally by a vegetarian or an
anti-vivisectionist, or even a homeopathist, unrepentant
at heart though too kindly to be articulate in a community
where the Hospital is the humming centre of all that is
earnest and gracious and devotional in the Mission's life.
We were not more differentiated than any similar number
of people picked at random at home, but circumstances
threw us together intimately and for long, uninterrupted
spells. Under such conditions the lights of the picture
are higher and the shadows sharper than they would be
at home.

In such a circle the situation is saved both by the
constant return of the many to those fundamental truths
and securities which prompted their entrance into it,
and also by the sanity and sweetness of the few who
can always be depended upon.

The first of these safeguards we found in the weekly
reunion which centred in and around the prayer meeting,
held in English, and in the private devotional life which
both helped and was helped by that weekly gathering.
The second safeguard was the presence in our midst of
such a man as Andrew Young. He had an incurable
modesty ; he did not take the eye of the newcomer ; he
was not the man to compel the breathless homage of an
assembly ; but he was always there ; steady and reliable,
wise in counsel, gracious in intention, loyal in perfor-
mance. Every large mission will inevitably throw up a
certain small group of men who by virtue of natural
gifts and the outward necessities of the time have to act

A MEMBER OF THE MISSION 137

in emergencies. Most missions, however democratic
and we of the Shensi mission were nothing if not
democratic recognize this and make a virtue of necessity
by appointing an Advisory Committee or an Emergency
Council, or some such body. It is indicative of the
deepest and most permanent qualities of Andrew Young
that it is difficult to think of him on the field and not
being on " The Advisory Council".

CHAPTER VI
The Making of a Home

SOMEWHERE in his Five Towns excursions Mr. Arnold
Bennett describes minutely the office in which his hero
worked. The room stands out in all its drab hideousness
and mean makeshifts, whereafter the author puts into one
relentless sentence the whole of his indictment against
the ugliness and dreariness of so much of the modern
business machine : " In this room he spent one-third of
his whole life."

If in Britain it is true that a person's room reveals his
character much more is this the case in the mission field
where one has to be his own upholsterer and decorator.
The house where a man lives is important in its effect
upon his character when he lives in his native land and is
able to mingle easily with friends of his own way of life ;
how much more so when his home may be the one link
with that particular form of civilization of which he is a
product.

Previous to his marriage Young lived in the Hospital
where Stanley Jenkins kept house. Here the note of
the house was the note struck by the latter. But after
three months in China the new-comer had become engaged
to Dr. Charlotte Murdoch, whom as " Sister Charlotte "
he had known in his Christian work at Westminster
Chapel. And when one thinks of Young in his home it

138

THE MAKING OF A HOME 139

is the delightful, easy, comfortable and pre-eminently
" lived-in " rooms of the home that Sister Charlotte
made.

When Dr. Campbell Morgan accepted the invitation in
1904 to start the great work which he was to carry out
in Westminster he looked round for a suitable lieutenant
for the women's side of the work and invited Charlotte
Murdoch to undertake the task. For eighteen months
after her graduation she had combined deaconess training
with medical practice. The invitation now given pointed
both to a great opportunity and a great sacrifice. To
succeed in the work meant building up a hive of happy
human interests amongst the women of the congregation ;
nurses, secretaries, teachers, typists, retail-house assist-
ants, lodging-house keepers, women of all ages and
conditions. Such work needed courage, sureness of
touch, intuition and an informed sympathy. It also
meant a check to medical work, and this at a period when
the graduate most needed practice. For the daughter of a
medical man enthusiastic for his profession, a member of
a home where medical shop was one of the leading
interests of her sisters one is a doctor and another
is a nurse it was no light thing to put aside a profession
for which she had qualified.

But whilst many women were pressing into the medical
profession, there were few, very few, who could have
undertaken, at that date, the particularly delicate work
needed at Westminster. And so Dr. Murdoch was sunk
in Sister Charlotte, and Dr. Campbell Morgan got his
lieutenant who organized and led the deaconess corps in
Buckingham Gate.

It was there in 1905 that Andrew Young (who at the
time was acting as assistant to Dr. Brailey, the Harley
Street eye specialist), working as hard on Sundays as on

140 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

weekdays, came to help in the Sunday School where he
kept his boys entranced with tales of Congo life and in
following up cases of men who had been influenced by
Evangelistic services. The friendship then formed
between the head of the " follow-up " department and
her volunteer assistant resulted later in a loss to the
Westminster staff and a gain for that of Shensi when
Sister Charlotte came out there to share Andrew Young's
life and work.

By the rules of the B.M.S. he could not marry with the
Society's consent until after the completion of his first
year's language study, but by February, 1907, he was
ready to proceed to Shanghai, take his examination there,
and await the arrival of his wife to be. The shopping
expeditions in search of furniture which followed their
marriage were sandwiched between the meetings of
the great (Ecumenical Conference of 1907, a happy
introduction for Mrs. Andrew Young to her future life
in China.

They came back by the Han river, a three months trip,
working with a teacher en route. By road and cart one
can do practically nothing in this way, since such travel,
though enjoyable, leaves little energy for study in the
inns at the close of the day, whereas on a boat study is
possible.

Study was varied by occasional excitements. At one
place where they stayed for the night their boatmen
engaged in a wordy duel with the villagers. Boats have
to pull up to the bank at night on account of both
currents and pirates ; and it is for this reason that one
does not choose a lonely stretch of water but huddles up,
in the company of other boats, by a riverside village or
town. On this occasion, after a Donnybrook Fair free
fight, one of the crew was carried aboard apparently a

THE MAKING OF A HOME 141

broken man. The boat's captain wished to force the
elders of the village to provide a substitute puller. Young
was reminded of the endless quarrels of the Congo carrier
days. " After spending a whole forenoon in palavering,
the head man of the village agreed that eleven hundred
cash about one shilling should be paid, in considera-
tion of which the wounded man was willing to recover
without undue delay. As a matter of fact he was in full
working trim next day, so I was confirmed in my opinion
that it was more temper than any injury." One has to
remember that to the riverine population there is little
mental recreation apart from talking. They do not
read, they see no theatre save twice or thrice a year, and
they have no idea of a systematic knowledge of nature.
Small wonder that if the joy of a row presents itself,
they should make the most of it ; it is at least some
distraction from the drab monotony of their lives, quite
worth a small amount of bloodshed and an enormous
amount of noise.

The boatmen were a very decent sort ; they took life
merrily in spite of cold, hunger, dirt and damp. A bit
of dry bread and garlic, a good dose of sunshine, muddy
water from the stream slightly cleared by the use of
alum and at night a filthy wadded quilt in which to
wrap themselves after puffing at a long pipe, of which the
bowl (about the circumference of a sixpence) precludes
undue extravagance, and then the sweet sleep of the
hard, unimaginative toiler. Such was their life and
they took it wonderfully well.

To the man who had known the empty leagues of
river on the Congo the volume of trade on these Chinese
rivers seemed immense, and he was never tired of
exclaiming at the dense river population.

One advantage of taking this route to Sianfu is that

142 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

one obtains a good idea of Central China life ; the life of
the Yangtze-kiang and its tributaries. The dust or
mud of the Honan-Sianfu road is changed for the endless
variety of the waterway and the mountains. Also one
sees work at stations directed by the Lutheran, the
Swedish, the Brethren Missions and the C.I.M. Missions.
All of which means education for the traveller. One
weakness was apparent even to a passing and sympathetic
visitor. " At Fancheng we stayed the whole afternoon
and had the pleasure of meeting several of the missionaries
there. They are all Swedish or Norwegian, some of them
from America. One remarkable thing about the
Norwegians is the number of different societies there are
with practically no difference between them. It is said
there are about twenty different Norwegian Lutheran
Societies not having between them altogether more than
one hundred missionaries."

The last stage of the journey from the Han River to
the city, given good weather and roads free from bandits
and in those days there was real government in Shensi
is a delight. Young had always found in mountain
scenery an uplift that took him out of himself. He was
not likely to appreciate it less on the journey on which he
brought home his wife.

" On Wednesday our course lay up the bed of the
stream the whole day, through a gorge, there being
magnificent high mountains on either side, all to a greater
or less extent clothed in green right up to the summit.
Thursday and Friday, however, crowned all as far as
scenery is concerned. We passed through the high
mountain ranges forming the watershed between the
Yangtze and the Yellow rivers. The scenery was
simply superb and cannot be described on paper. At the
base of the hills stretched the light green of the rice fields,

THE MAKING OF A HOME 143

above was the darker green of the trees, and higher still
the yet darker combination of green and brown rising to
the summits of the hills." It is in such scenes of beauty
that the peasantry are asked by the priests of the local
cult to believe in gods who are described as follows : "In
going around the city in the cool of the evening if the
evening just now can be said to have any cool we were
taken into a temple and shown round. I do not think
I ever saw such hideous figures as those of some of these
gods. In an enclosure along each side of a courtyard
was a representation of Hell. There were figures of poor
wretches undergoing all the forms of torture that could
be imagined. Some were being skinned alive, others
sawn through, impaled on spikes, slashed to pieces. Ten
kings were seated on thrones superintending the tortures
which were carried out by demons whose faces were
models of cruelty and ferocity. Altogether it was a
gruesome spectacle, and yet the people who are supposed
to believe that this is to be their fate do not seem to be
in the slightest degree deterred from wrong-doing."

It had been a holiday and a wedding journey upon
which to look back with joy and thankfulness all the rest
of their days. " We are as happy as we can be " may
not convey much from some men but from Andrew
Young, who habitually said less than he felt, it means
a great deal. " It is obvious that she was made for
China and for me." (This is after Mrs. Young had
been thoroughly enjoying meetings with the women, in
spite of the language barrier, at a Mission station passed
en route, and had made nothing of the small discomforts
of the boats.) " I simply can't begin to tell you
what a difference having her with me makes in all
my life."
By the first of July they were able to write from

144 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

their own home. They were in Sianfu at last and
together.

They had a royal welcome in Sianfu and settled down
in a house in the East Suburb, Young riding into the
city each day for his hospital work. It was hoped that
this arrangement would give them both a better chance
of getting in some language study, though the medical
needs that were always cropping up in the suburb itself
with its boys' and girls' schools were numerous
enough. Accommodation was very limited in the Mission
premises, and though an Englishman may like his house
to be his castle, he finds it is not always practical. " We
are very comfortably settled now," writes Mrs. Young.
" We have two large rooms a bedroom and a sitting-
room- and a small box-room to ourselves. We share a
dining room, kitchen and store room with Mr. Keyte, who
is taking a large part of Mr. Shorrock's work." We had
a very happy time together. It is not every married
couple who could put up with such an arrangement, but
they did it with such genuine and simple kindliness that
one had no sense of being an intruder. Then, too, we
were all pretty busy folk in those days so that we did not
see very much of one another. The idea that study could
be done by two medical people in a populous suburb
turned out to be a dream, especially in the great heat of
a South Shensi summer. " It is a bit cooler to-day than it
has been. Friday the thermometer stood at 105 in the
shade, and it was difficult to study properly that day.
However we are very well and happy, so little things like
time and weather do not make so much difference."
Thus Mrs. Andrew. When it comes to putting up with
unpleasantness without complaint, it is the women of
the mission communities who get the high percentage of
marks.

THE MAKING OF A HOME 145

This picture of their journey from the coast, their
interest in the scenes through which they passed, and
in the people whom they met, their facility for making
light of the discomforts of travel, of enjoying it all as a
picnic, brings out a characteristic which Young and his
wife had in common ; they were incorrigible gypsies.
" The long road which stretches and the roadside fire "
was to them pure joy. To pack up a change of linen, a
Bible and a medical book or two and go off to the rescue
of some sick body separated from them by roaring
rivers and muddy roads was quite a casual affair.
Even the babies did not cure them. Russell
Young, must have travelled thousands of miles.
Father was needed as a doctor, mother as a doctor or
nurse or anaesthetist or housekeeper it was all one so
long as it was service, and it was all good fun and so
the babe was packed into the mule litter or cart, and off
went the whole happy family in the greatest good
humour. 1 The Lord wanted a piece of work done, and
these two loyal souls set about the doing of it, not in
the spirit of servants carrying out a task, but as those
who had once for all the word, " I call you not servants
but friends." As their Lord's disciples and friends they
set out on the path He showed them.

The home they built reflected this trait in their charac-
ters. The " bottom drawer," dear to the hearts of the
house-proud, became for them a kit-bag of useful articles
that might be needed on the road or by the next waif
or stray whom circumstance led to seek the shelter of
the hospital. Since they, the owners of carpets and
furniture, were there to-day but might be on the
road next month, " let us enjoy our things whilst we
can," they wisely said. One never dreaded coming out

1 After the Revolution these trips had to be discontinued.

K

146 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

of the storm with muddy boots into the Youngs' sitting-
room. "The things are here to be used," was their
genial way of setting wet and muddy intruders at their
ease. So there was never any reservation of " best "
things. The home was a place to be happy in, a place
for comfort. If on a cold winter evening, when the
house-boys had been considerately sent to their rest, one
came in unawares upon the Youngs, the fire in the room
at any cost it was a real open fire, not a stove was
more than a sitting-room fire, it did duty for a kitchen
grate as well, and a saucepan or a kettle, not at all of
drawing-room fashion, would soon bubble or sing. If
there only happened to be one spoon between three of
us and the saucer did not match the cup, who, at that
late hour and impromtu meal, cared ? A few good prints
on the walls, some curtains that were not ashamed to
have plenty of colour, chairs that were big and comfort-
able with not a spindle-legged horror amongst them
and a Bible or two whose covers showed signs of ill-
treatment (it is hard on the bindings of Bibles when
their owners are religious gypsies), a " Literary Digest,"
and one or two baby garments, or the darning-basket
filled with the socks of a tramping physician made up the
picture. Do people to-day read " Johnny Ludlow " or
" The Channings " ? If so, the well-used room where a
group of happy and utterly unpretentious people spent
their days, described by Mrs. Henry Wood, is the nearest
thing I know to this real Shensi home.
Happy people ! Happy Andrew !

CHAPTER VII

The Medical Missionary

THE " practice " of a Sianfu surgeon reaches to the
boundaries of a province the size of England, and in
addition it draws patients from a considerable portion
of the neighbouring western province of Kansuh, the
capital of which, Lanchow, is eighteen days' journey
from Sianfu. Thus, in spite of all endeavours to confine
medical activities to the precincts of the hospital, a
certain amount of flying column work is unavoid-
able.

Most missionaries in the inland provinces of China
know something of the discomforts and even of the risks
of road travel, but none know them so well as do the
doctors. For them the summons may come at any
time and in any weather. The floods may be out ; they
may see rafts washed away on the treacherous, sudden-
rising streams that flow into the Yellow River, the
Yangtze-kiang, or the rivers of South China ; but if
they can by any means persuade hunger-driven, poverty-
stricken boatmen to attempt the passage they must do
so, since across the river their arrival may mean the
difference between life and death. Through thirty miles
of slush, under a steady drizzle, or over frozen, treacherous
roads, on days when other travellers will resign them-
selves to being weather-bound in an inn, the doctor, not

W7

148 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

from love of heroics or by reason of obstinacy, but in
the prosaic performance of duty, plods on. And though
he would deem it presumption on his part to quote such
words, the words none the less do apply to his case :
" That I might by all means save some."

One of the first requirements of the surgeon therefore
is a horse and a seat thereon. Young had not ridden
before his China career, but he started riding from his
earliest Shensi days. Riding is not only the speediest
means of travel, it is, when one is in health, the most
comfortable. The bumping of the cart exhausts the
traveller, whilst the sedan chair is both slow and expen-
sive, besides being, in Shensi, when used by men, the
particular mark of the official or the would-be official. 1
Of the mule-litter I have written, and with feeling,
elsewhere. 2

Within a few days of his first ride Young had to go
to the Gospel Village, on the north side of the Wei River.
It was a long, long ride, forty miles over Chinese field
paths or on badly cut-up frozen roads. The long wait
at the ferry over the Wei River made a welcome break,
though he was stiff and sore on resuming the saddle.
The saving feature of the ride was the amble of the
Chinese pony. These ponies are trained to move the
two right legs together, and then the two left legs together,
and the result is a very comfortable gait, though one pays
for it in the fact that the horse so trained is less sure-
footed than the ordinary trotting horse.

The necessity for a doctor in the interior of a North
China province being able to ride is a real, not an academic,

1 These things differ in different provinces. They marked in Shensi
a real class distinction, whereas in the south and west of the country
the chair is the usual mode of travel.

2 " The Passing of the Dragon," chapter XLVI.

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 149

question. After the revolution in 1913 the doctor in
charge of the Sianfu, Hospital was called upon in a hurry
to attend the Governor of the province. (The Chinese
title in those days was " Tutu ", the term to-day is
" Tuchun ".) There had been an attempt to assassinate
the Governor as he descended from his horse at the
entrance to his yamen. In those young days of the
Republic there was still some idea, in the provinces at
any rate, of showing some of the simplicity supposed to
attach to republican life. His Excellency Chou Tzu-chi,
upon taking up the office of Tutu of Shantung, had tried
walking about the streets like any ordinary citizen.
Whilst in Sianfu the Tutu one day, in answer to the
query, " Had he come in a chair ? " the day being a
filthy one for riding replied : " Oh, no ; now that we
are a republic, we cannot use men as animals to carry
us." The attempt at republican simplicity has dis-
appeared to-day, but it was being made then and explains
why the Shensi Governor, riding with only one or two
attendants, was an easy mark for the would-be assassin.
An artery had been severed in the lower leg, and there
was a nasty body wound besides. A squad of horsemen
was sent tearing off to the hospital, to which they were
accustomed to turn in any difficulty. They brought a
good led horse for the use of the doctor in charge, who,
unfortunately, was far from feeling at home in the saddle.
The one idea of the excited group of Chinese mounted
soldiers was to get that medico up to the yamen in time
to save their master's life. The doctor was a new arrival,
knowing very little of the Chinese language, but a non-
medical colleague lived with him at the hospital to give
what help he could, especially as interpreter. This
colleague and the Tutu were by that time old friends, and
so the former conies into this story. The soldiers put

150 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

the doctor on to the big beefy animal they had brought ;
the colleague rode his own pony, and they all started
at a trot down the muddy, uneven street, no two yards
of which could be called good going. After the first
hundred yards it was evident that in this wise they
would never get to the yamen with a live doctor, so a
change of animals was effected, and with a corporal
and the missionary riding on either side of the doctor,
each with a hand on his shoulder, they went tearing
down the street. To this day one wonders how they
did it, since the Tutu's bodyguard, used for months to
the riding of Young and Robertson, took it for granted
that the two foreigners could stand any sort of pace and
any sort of surface.

However, the Tutu's yamen was reached in time. He
had lost a considerable quantity of blood, but was very
plucky about it. The wounds were heavy enough to
confine him for weeks within doors ; a serious matter to
one with his responsibilities. He made a good patient,
as it happened, being a philosopher in his own way. In
addition he had a nice sense of humour, and though
attempted assassination might not seem amusing he
managed to extract some smiles out of the incident.

It was on a trip to see a patient who had been hurt
and could not get to him that Young for the first time
came across the way in which a Chinese will help himself
along the road when escorting mounted riders ; the
simple method being to catch hold of the horse's tail
and hang on for all one is worth. " The horse did not
seem to mind it a bit ; but I should have thought it
rather risky."

It was upon returning from his first trip to the Gospel
Village, where he had stayed a few days, and where his
visits to patients in neighbouring villages had been varied

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 151

only by attendance at long preaching services, of which
he understood the spirit but none of the words, that he
wrote : "I felt I had derived no small benefit physically
and spiritually from the short change." From the
stations in which we live to-day, served by railways and
lit by electricity, with ice to be bought on the street in
summer, one looks back on those Shensi days, when a
three-hours' Chinese service was varied by such activities
as Young describes, and to his description one adds the filth
and the heat, the noise and the smells of which he makes
no mention, and one knows that, strange though it may
seem, it was quite true those country trips were physic-
ally and spiritually beneficial. After all, they were filled
with interest, the interest of one's work, and with the
unending interest of the ways of the Chinese people,
whom one came to know not merely as passers-by but
as friends and genial acquaintances.

The riding in China replaced the tramping in Congo,
but the living on the road was of the same hardy sort.
" One does not require much in the way of luggage. A
kind of wadded mattress, which serves as a bed, and a
few garments are put into a bag and slung across the
saddle so as to form a soft seat on which one can ride
very comfortably indeed. We made pretty good speed
too, averaging about six miles an hour, between thirty
and forty miles in a day over such roads as we often
have here." For food he would get what he could at the
roadside inns, the main diet being " mien-t'iao ", the
Chinese equivalent of vermicelli. Andrew Young, who
was content with anything which staved off hunger and
allowed him to get on with his work, considered this
" just fine", whereas weaker brethren like myself would
secrete a bottle of Bovril to add to the strength and
flavour of the " mien ", and would also, by various

152 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

reprehensible contrivances, manage to produce a basin
or pot of " real tea ", of the Ceylon or Darjeeling variety,
with tinned milk added. In a Bond Street tea-room one
may be superior and demand " China " tea, but after
thirty miles on a muddy or dusty Chinese track and
if it isn't muddy it will be dusty unheroie Britons will
demand " real tea ".

It is on this road work that the medical missionary
sees for himself what suffering the Chinese endure through
wrong treatment at the hands of the old-style practi-
tioners. A certain knowledge of herbs these latter have
gathered during the long centuries, and in some of their
methods, such, for example, as counter-irritants, they
show skill; but their plasters, their objection to soap
and warm water, their needle-probing and other devices
mean martyrdom to many a sufferer. When one dives
beneath the surface to find out the why and wherefore of
their treatment the grotesqueness of the reasoning is
often startling. It is a shock, for instance, to come
across a patient who, upon his stomach, has a ghastly
moving protuberance, which turns out to be a frog
which, being cold-blooded, is there to draw away the
undue heat of the patient's troubled organs. The
doctors in Shensi were constantly meeting with instances
of such methods. " We have one man who had his
eye pierced to cure cataract ; the result being that he
lost it" the loss being the eye and not the cataract.
" Another man who came had had needles stuck in
about the stomach and shoulder blade to cure indigestion.
Strangely enough, he got no better but rather worse."

It is partly on account of the ease with which a patient's
friends or guardians will turn to men using such methods

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 153

that treatment otherwise than in the hospital itself is
so unsatisfactory. Even when no professional " doctor "
is called in, the old ladies of the village, who have picked
up some of these methods, will soon wear down the
resistance of the patient's natural protectors until the
unfortunate sick person is subjected to fantastic or
dangerous " remedies ". The one real comfort known is
opium, and the fatal facility with which resort is made
to opium or, in these later years when there is wealth
enough, morphia is yet another reason for insisting
upon the patient being treated in a hospital.

As an evangelistic agency a case might be made for
flying column work. There are medical missionaries
who, provided they could depend upon a hospital to
which cases needing surgical aid or carefully watched
medical treatment could be sent, would do splendid
service in opening up hostile or indifferent districts to
the reception of the missionary's religious message.
And not only so. The immediate relief they could give
in many cases by the substitution of a simple treatment,
easily understood by an ordinary villager, for some filthy
quackery, the relief they could bring to the minds of the
anxious through the knowledge that the case had been
gone into by a properly qualified man all this would be
true Christian service. In certain districts where missions
have to-day a number of qualified Chinese medical men,
experiments are being made on these lines, but in 1906
(and as far as Shensi is concerned, in 1923) no such
work could be attempted ; all the available men and
resources had to be put into the effort to carry on the
work of the hospital.

There are in China two types of mission hospital at

154 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

work, due partly to the requirements of the work itself
and partly to the temperament of the medical man in
charge. The first is the large hospital sometimes with
a teaching school attached in some great provincial
capital ; the second, the small hospital in a country
town.

The genius of Stanley Jenkins had evolved a hospital
of the former type, and it was here that Andrew Young
commenced his China medical career. His own preference
was always for the second type of work, but no one was
ever more loyal than he in addressing himself to the
immediate duty whatever his personal preferences might
be. For most of his time in China he had to struggle
with an elaborate and complicated machine which was
not the hospital of his dreams. Only after his soul had
been thus disciplined for years did that small hospital
come at last to be a reality.

The necessity of the large hospital in Sianfu was
proved to the full in 1911 the year of the Chinese
Revolution when it became the head-quarters of the
medical work for the military of the province. Rough
as its arrangements might have appeared to the casual
traveller with elaborate hospitals of London and New
York in mind, it had been so well planned and its service
so well built up that it was able to stand the strain of
a sudden and amazing expansion when China was plunged
into civil war and the Sianfu plain became a shambles.
It proved to be in the local medical world what Viscount
Haldane's skeleton territorial force had proved in the
English military world. The work of Andrew Young
and Cecil Robertson in the Revolution was possible
because the fine organizing ability of Stanley Jenkins
who was then home on furlough had made their hospital
expansion possible at the beginning of the troubles.

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 155

Long before Jenkins's return, Young and Robertson had
had to adapt here and change there, in order to meet the
needs of the kaleidoscopic times in which they lived.
The old official world known to Jenkins disappeared,
and a new race of Republican leaders took charge of
the province, to whom he was not even a name; but
the hospital still bore his stamp, and great was the
joy of his two colleagues when into their over-driven,
exhausted lives there came again that quiet, slim figure
with its ascetic face, its gracious manner, and its un-
ostentatious yet amazing sense of sheer power. For
weaker men Stanley Jenkins's advent brought its own
special temptation, the temptation to relax effort and
to turn things over to one who seemed able to do any-
thing ; for men like Young and Robertson his coming
meant a new and heartened tug at the yoke which now
harnessed three workers instead of two; it meant a
fresh output of ideas and energy.

The medical missionary in the interior of China has
to obtain his knowledge of the country empirically.
Books he may have read upon the country before arrival
such volumes as Wells's " Middle Kingdom," or books
by Dr. Arthur H. Smith, Bland and Backhouse, Campbell
Gibson, Sir Alexander Hosie will be all to the good,
but their help is of necessity very limited. What happens
is that around certain figures or features of his Chinese
life there will crystallize a large amount of first-hand
knowledge of his new world. Gradually the gaps between
these areas of the known will be bridged lightly by the
surmised and the partially observed, until the man
finds himself possessed of the fabric which we call
" a Chinese background." Looking round for the

156 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

centres of crystallization one might perhaps place
them as :

THE HORSE, THE MAGISTRATE, THE GATE-
KEEPER, and THE " LAO TAl TA1."

The horse has walked on to our scene already. For
our medical missionary the horse involves the -middle
man when buying the animal, the groom, the veterinary
surgeon, the man who sells the bran, the peas merchant
and the straw retailer ; all of whom figure in the horse's
life. Still more figures come within the purview if one
travels without a servant. On a trip made by Dr.
Cecil Robertson and myself on horseback in this way
we found it necessary to talk many words with Chinese
" Sam Weller's " acting as ostlers in the inn yards.
At one inn where on a bitterly cold night we were caught
without so much as a saddle rug between us, we had
to bargain with the frowsy inn-keeper to hire us a wadded
quilt (" p'u-kai ") for the night. His asseverations that
this same quilt was quite clean and free from all taint
of infection formed a lesson in the Chinese language.
We had either to pace the yard all night to keep our-
selves warm or to use his quilt. Since we had been in
the saddle all day and were drooping with fatigue we
took the quilt, and, with fervent hopes that the last
passing carter who had hired it had been free from
smallpox or typhus, we cuddled up together in our
overcoats, packing the quilt around the two of us, and
dozed fitfully till the first streak of dawn made it possible
for us to take the road once more. To the inn-keeper
and the ostler should be added the roadside blacksmith.

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 157

One has at times to tramp many miles leading a limping
horse before this last person is found. Other figures
there are, but these will suffice. At the coast one need
know none of these except the groom. The horse is
bought at the dealer's, and the " ma-foo " (the groom)
contracts for his wages and the animal's " board ".
But in the unsophisticated interior one gets into direct
touch with various figures, each of which has his value
for the missionary, gathering about him as he does
additional knowledge of the country.

The magistrate is a figure in the interior which of all
missionaries the doctor needs most to know. For upon
the magistrate's co-operation not merely tolerance but
active co-operation and explicit sanction, he has to
rely. In Sianfu before a patient underwent an opera-
tion, he or his friends had to sign an agreement absolving
the hospital from all responsibility in the case of the
patient's death. The Chinese law 1 upon responsibility
for death is too involved and too capable of widely
differing interpretation for us to go into here, but the
reader can rest assured that such a precaution is essential,
not only to prevent the hospital being suddenly called
upon to pay ruinous costs, but also to prevent outbreaks
of local ill-feeling based on rumour of wrong treatment.
The agreement is therefore necessary, but for such
agreement to have any weight the form of it must have

1 By " law " here is not necessarily meant a modern authorized code,
but that mass of authority available for the magistrate which is made
up of precedents, classical excerpts and various mandates. The more
one knew of some of the old style Chinese country magistrates the
more was one impressed by the sound sense and the instinct for affairs
which guided them through a maze of conflicting claims to their
Solon-like conclusions.

158 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

the full sanction of the local magistrate, who will need,
after an explanation in detail of its terms, to reassure
himself that they can be reconciled with Chinese law*
The necessity for this explanation is a fine opportunity
for the medical missionary, and one which has been
largely used. And this is only one of many questions
on which the surgeon in charge of a hospital will need
the approval and help of the magistrate. The burial of
indigent patients, escort for travellers, arrangements for
entrance and exit from city gates at unusual hours, an
explanatory proclamation anent the hospital in times
of crisis, a guard at the main gate of the building any
of these may be required. The magistrate and the
missionary are both busy men, and each respects the
claims upon the other's time, but their interviews are
generally a mutual boon. Become friendly with a
magistrate and you are given in succinct form, in words
framed by a man trained to think, the reasons for so
much that had appeared to you previously mere un-
meaning prejudice and perversity. How the sense of
relief comes back to one in remembering the sane quiet-
ness of an interview with a magistrate in his yamen,
after the bewilderment of hours and even of days wherein
incessant rumour and the clamours of conflicting claims
had made judgement seem impossible. Imagine then
the freedom to get on with his work which is given to the
doctor after relations with the local authorities have
been well established. For, once such relations are
established there is no more trouble ; year in year out
the agreement will run.

If the hospital was in a country town serving a remote
district the magistrate might be pathetically glad of the
acquaintance of a man who not only represented the
outside world which any missionary would do but

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 159

represented science which generally appealed to the
magistrate more than did religion. Admiral Ts'ai T'ing-
Kan recently told us, at a Peking assembly, that there
were three doctors with whom he had to reckon ; the
doctor of law, the doctor of divinity, and the doctor of
medicine. Of the first he saw as little as possible;
with the second he contemplated holding one interview
only ; but with the third he proposed keeping on the
friendliest terms all the time.

They are at times pathetically lonely, these country
magistrates. The cultured Chinese from Fuchow, Canton
or Tientsin, left for months without one of his own
kidney in a country district in Kansuh, Yunnan or other
province of the far interior, is one who may command
the sympathy of his missionary neighbour, and prove
the latter's opportunity. 1 Nor does one forget the call
upon the surgeon by the magistrate for professional
services. The latter cannot easily come into the hospital.
Some of " the divinity which doth hedge a King " clings
to the man who represents the authority of the state
amongst the populace, so that he cannot mix with
ordinary mortals in a hospital ward ; whilst private
wards are seldom possible. He has to ask the surgeon
to depart from his usual custom and to pay a private
visit. And the magistrate thus discovered in his home
is often a very human, sometimes a lovable person. 2
One of the links which bound Dr. Cecil Robertson especi-
ally to General Chang Pei-ying, the gallant second-in-
command in Shensi in 1911-12, was the former's care
for the General's girl wife. Chang threw over all Chinese
reluctance at calling in a male doctor, and himself carried
out Robertson's instructions with unquestioning obedi-

1 Gj. " Mandarin and Missionary in Cathay," by E. F. Borsfc-Smith.
z Cf, "Two Gentlemen of China," by Lady Hosie (Seeley Service).

160 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

ence. Where both the men were young, generous and
frank, and working together under such conditions, it is
not surprising that they grew to understand and like
each other greatly. It is refreshing after the painfully
prosaic way in which the marriage relationship is often,
and perhaps inevitably, considered by the Chinese
peasant whose main concern is necessarily the obtaining
of food for a certain number of "mouths", to come
across a real love story. Chang Pei-ying, the soldier-
captain, snatching a few days' leave from the front now
and again, and bringing to his girl wife a lover's devo-
tion, brought a special gleam of colour and romance
into the life Robertson lived in the hospital during
those Shensi days. Faults in plenty had Chang Pei-ying
grievous faults but he was a gentleman both on the
field and in his home, and one reaches to a fuller and
truer appreciation of the Chinese character after an
acquaintance with such as he.

" The gatekeeper problem " is one of the most constant
and difficult known to the medical missionary in Asia
certainly in China. The man who has been years in
the East and knows something of this problem rebels
against conventional pictures of St. Peter keeping the
gate into heaven, and questions seriously if heaven can
be heaven if a gatekeeper is necessary at all. The
superintendent of the hospital may not be able to put
his finger upon any case of patients being mulcted by
the gatekeeper before they can see the doctor, yet he is
never free from the uncomfortable suspicion. After a
while he resigns himself to a state of uncertainty ; for if
he dismiss the present gatekeeper he may possibly get
a worse man in his place.

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 161

For the regular out-patient day the best safeguard the
visiting public has is the general publicity. There are
so many waiting to be seen ; there is the clerk taking
their names and the small fee a few coppers, sufficient
to insure that the " patient " does not try to get treat-
ment for the sake of a bottle which he can empty of
its medicinal contents and then sell ; or does not take up
the doctor's time on some wholly frivolous pretext
there is the evangelist preaching to the crowd in the
waiting-room, the colporteur selling Scriptures ; amongst
all this bustle it would be difficult for the gatekeeper
and his assistant to " squeeze " the applicants. It is
when a man comes in an emergency, not in the regular
hours, that one fears he may be victimized. Yet a gate-
keeper who knows how to receive guests, to inquire into
their business, to let the head of the hospital know in a
few words what is reqiiired ; such a man is a real treasure.
When found one will put up with much rather than
lose him. A stupid or uncouth gatekeeper though he
be well meaning and honest, may by his gaucheries keep
away from a hospital or for that matter from any
missionary enterprise the very people it ought to help.
But the gatekeeper is but one figure, though perhaps
the outstanding one, in a group with which the medical
missionary is being brought into daily contact, from
each member of which he is learning his China. There
is the head cook of the patients' kitchen, the business
manager who buys the coal, oil, cloth and etceteras, the
flour millers, the coolies in short the whole class of
non-technical assistants.

The gatekeeper in China is not merely an individual,
he is an institution. He represents that underworld of
hangers-on that gather around any Chinese public work.
The difficulty which the patient has in reaching the

L

162 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

doctor typifies the difficulty the country has in establishing
a swift reliable working relation between the country's
executive and the people which it should serve ; between
the two stands a class, draining life from each, and yet
a class which performs useful functions. There is no
insuperable reason why it should not be as honest as
another ; but it has been accustomed for centuries to
look for its remuneration to bribery rather than to a
definite wage cleanly earned. Two reasons for this
state of things stand out clearly. They do not cover
the whole ground, but they are major reasons : (1) The
over centralization of the executive ; (2) the withdrawal
of that executive from the public view. The first reason
resulted in the long chain of intermediaries between
the small town in a remote province and Peking, three
thousand miles away. In studying the pictures of
China's golden age as given in the classics, it is of first
importance to keep in mind firmly the fact that the state
there described was a small one the size of one only of
modern China's provinces. Through this state the writ
could run and bear some likeness when executed to its
form when leaving the throne. The second reason was
due to the idea of the " Son of Heaven's " sanctity ;
a figment which had its immediate uses but held within
it the germ of the executive's decay. The ensuing in-
ability of the Emperor personally to transact business
meant not the gradual upbuilding of constitutional
government as in the case of a limited monarchy, but
of a highly undemocratic bureaucracy.

One of the main movements in China to-day is that
making for decentralization ; a movement which aims at
a Federation of autonomous Chinese States supporting of
their free will, and for their own convenience, a federal
centre at Peking or elsewhere as shall be convenient

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 163

the functions of which shall be to relate the country's
federated interests with the governments of other nations.
In this way thoughtful Chinese see a possibility of grap-
pling with the parasitic problem, particularly with two
of its worst instances ; the military and the professional
politician.

Out of his struggles with the highly centralized hospital

Andrew Young's dream of the small hospital emerged as

more than ever desirable ; a hospital where the doctor

could act as the father of a family ; a hospital which was

a home in which every member of the staff should be a

son or daughter, where all were one " in Christ " and

where all were soul-winners. Instead of large sums

constantly going through the hands of some " business

manager " whose dealings were so large, so numerous

and so involved that they could not be checked there

would be only the small daily accounts which could be

handled easily and checked immediately. That there

might still be leakage, even in the small hospital, was

true, but it could be sooner detected and would affect

fewer people, and the doctor could sleep o' nights feeling

that he was not daily putting too great a temptation

upon a business manager ; that his dispensers and other

assistants were not being given undue opportunity of

selling hospital drugs to medicine shops in the city ; and

that the gatekeepers were not making their pockets the

first consideration when allowing patients to see the

doctor. That dream hospital was realized at last when

he came to live in San Yuan, though his work there,

alas, was all too short.

But as a centre around which gathers a large amount
of Chinese knowledge, the most interesting figure and
certainly the most insistent in demands upon the

1

i

4

164 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

attention, is the " lao t'ai-t'ai " the old lady the
grandmother of a Chinese family.

One gets a better opportunity of realizing the worth
of this character and also the discipline of the spirit
which she represents, by reading Young (and others)
upon the first woman patient of the Sianfu hospital.
She impressed him so much that he does not give her
name, but refers to her always as if she were above mere
surnames. For him she was always " the first woman
patient." Her name was Li, and she was a veritable
Mrs. Proudie in managerial ability, though her original
autocratic instincts were so mellowed and coloured by
her Christianity that the disagreeable aspects of Mrs.
Proudie receded more and more into the background as
time went on. She was suffering from a large tumour
which involved a heavy operation and a prolonged stay
in the hospital. Having been accustomed to ruling the
little world of her own household husband, sons,
daughters-in-law and grandchildren with an iron hand,
she naturally wanted at first to rule the women's ward
of the hospital likewise. For the foreign doctor she had
respect. Here was deep calling unto deep. Did he not
also rule a little kingdom ? A fellow potentate she could
meet on terms of amity. But as for ward boys, dispen-
sers, assistants male or female, let them recognize
authority. Was she not the old lady ? Had not her
daughters-in-law bom men children into the world ?
Was it not fixed in the laws of the universe that to such
as she rule was given ? And she proceeded by the
power of her tongue to attempt to extend her empire.
Poor lao t'ai-t'ai ! She met with some severe shocks
and put up a brave fight before she recognized that
even in a mission hospital, where kindness is the dominant
note and red tape is never exalted, there must be rules

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 165

and these must be followed by all inmates ; even by the
exalted in the earth. Very voluble were her protests,
very scathing her scorn ; driven out of one entrenchment
she fought gamely in the next ; but at length when it
was made clear that she must obey or go, she submitted,
only to find out how delightful submission could be.

She set herself, whilst in the hospital, to learn what
could be learned, and her powerful intellect found a
whole world of interest in the new ways of management
she saw around her. But especially she set herself to
learn " the teaching" which she was quick to see was
the spring of the whole hospital life. She learned to
read, she learned to pray, she even attempted to sing.
And she broke through the barriers of age and prejudice
and pride, when she learned the Truth that is in Jesus
Christ. Her nature was transfigured, but the proportion
of its elements was still there. A leader she would always
be. As she had led in her village, so now she led in the
women's ward ; as she had forced her previous convictions
upon the attention of her neighbours, so now she went
about telling those whom she met of the Jesus who had
come into her life " telling her all things that ever she
did ". And on her lips was the question : "Is not this
the Christ?" The fine intellect which had been so starved,
had a new world of thought opened to it, to which it
turned gratefully.

When she returned home she sang not only the praises
of the physician and the hospital staff though the
loyal grateful soul did that in full measure she sang
the praises of her Saviour, and was determined that
" everybody should know " what joy was hers and
might be theirs. She was back shortly at the hospital
clamouring for preachers to be sent to her village. Hus-
band and sons had to tramp miles to attend worship.

166 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

--- - - - .... - . - . . .. .. i

The wonder is that they did not hate it, but presumably
they had so long listened to her dictates when these
were burdensome, that the new orders seemed easy
enough to obey. And soon they reached that point
when they came for their own sakes. " We were sur-
prised on Sunday afternoon, seeing that it was a very
wet day, to have our afternoon service so well attended
and to see the bright smiling face of the husband of our
first woman patient. He had tramped in nearly ten
miles in the rain."

When she paid them a visit in state Jenkins and Young
resigned themselves good-humouredly to an hour's
discipline. Young says : " Her tongue went sixteen to
the dozen, and one couldn't get a word in edgeways."
The early services in her home resulted in a whole village
being interested, and a place of worship the first purely
Shensi church home thus erected was built.

Such is the " lao t'ai-t'ai ". To attempt to ignore the
place of the old grandmother in Chinese society is folly ;
even as to submit uncritically to her untutored and
undisciplined demands would be disastrous. She is a
force to be reckoned with, a force to be directed to right
uses. She is more than a mother-in-law, she is China
incarnate, which is why no Chinese potentate for genera-
tions has so impressed the imagination both of her own
people and of intelligent foreigners brought within the
range of her influence as has "The Old Buddha", as the
Empress Dowager Tzu-Hsi she of the Boxer Year
was called. The " old lady " represents family stability,
the sense of decorum, filial piety, and the sense of a
home always there to which the wandering male can
return. She is very much the queen bee of the hive.

For the Christian Church the " lao t'ai-fai " can be
an invaluable friend. She may still be inclined to

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 167

domineer, but at least her leading is in the direction of
righteousness. And slowly she is learning that respect
for the personality of others which is inseparable from
Christianity. To the daughters-in-law to whom she was
once an unmitigated terror, she now opens a new and
enlarged world. True, they may find their new teacher
of reading is the old task-mistress in a new guise, but at
least they do learn to read. They may be urged some-
what violently to enter the Kingdom, but if they enter
they bear no grudge. And if for the daughters-in-law
there comes a new world, to the grand-daughters there
comes a joyous full life of which their predecessors never
dreamed ; the boarding school with its lessons that are a
pleasure, the drill, the games, the songs ; the return home
to show new treasures in sewing and crochet and drawing ;
a life wherein they have a real contribution to offer
instead of being mere despised drudges. To-day, Chinese
Government schools for girls are springing up on all
sides and doing good work, but in the early days of the
Missions they alone opened such a world to China's
daughters. Even to-day the Mission schools for girls
have a great contribution to make through their moral
tone and their greater discipline, quite apart from their
religious hope.

Here then are centres around which the new-comer's
knowledge of China grew. Other figures there were and
will appear in Andrew Young's story, but in the early
days it was from these the horse, the magistrate, the
gatekeeper, and the " lao t'ai-t'ai " that increasing
understanding of his Chinese environment was gained by
means of which the doctor grew into the Chinese landscape.

Meanwhile his own particular world the missionary

168 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

hospital had been growing ; built up not according to
some a priori plan though every medical missionary
comes out to China with such a plan tucked away in his
mind but along lines of development which grew out of
the modifying influence of personnel and circumstances
upon the main medical policy of the Mission. A
neighbouring house would be bought which allowed of
added beds, a neighbouring yard might be leased which
allowed the patients to obtain exercise away from the
temptations of smuggled opium or deadly dainties. New
departments, long necessary, were made possible with the
borrowing of an assistant from a neighbouring province,
or with the subsidizing of some bright youth for a course
of training. A heaven-born nurse was found whose scamp
of a husband had left her stranded and only too willing to
be taught to help in a women's ward. And so on.
Instead of the beautifully even building of a new edifice
from a plan, there was the slow articulation of an endless
series of living opportunities. As the skeleton cells in a
slowly-growing coral reef will in the end raise the reef
above the waves, so the hospital gradually emerges out
of the varied and seemingly innumerable experiments
and difficulties into an established fact.

This is not to say that there has been failure to plan; the
process has not been a " muddling along ", it has been a
" growing up ". In 1904 the Mission had secured premises
in Sianfu city for hospital purposes, and that was the
limit of its progress medically. The party described
above 1 arrived shortly before Christmas. By Christmas,
1905, there was a hospital, including men's and women's
wards, in full work. How was it done ? In January,
1905, the one Chinese with any training was Mr. Li Jen,
the dispenser. He was immediately taught to act as
i See Chapter V., p. 125.

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 169

anaesthetist. Cheng T'ien-yu, the boy who had been at
Spalding Grammar School, was put under Mr. Li as
assistant and to learn as quickly as might be what the
latter knew. He was a quick boy, with plenty of
initiative and courage. Unfortunately he had also the
defects of his virtues, and his temper was uncertain.
He was not a native of the province, had no Chinese
education, and was regarded by the ordinary run of
hospital assistants as something of an exotic who held
his place by virtue of having thrown in his lot entirely
with the foreigners. Yet, in spite of a hitch here and
there, he got through a great deal of work, and when
firmly handled was a useful helper. Every other assistant
had to be " grown ". A coolie showing intelligence and
character was promoted to ward boy, whilst a ward boy
who showed aptitude soon made himself felt and was
promoted by the doctor. The first operation of any
importance was the amputation of a tubercular patient's
leg just below the knee. This patient was a Christian,
a senior boy in the Middle School. It was a serious matter
for the Mission, since anything untoward in this case
might have meant trouble throughout the church and
the city. At that operation Mr. Li Jen was the anaes-
thetist, whilst T'ien-yu and one of the new non-medical
missionaries were the raw assistants for swabbing and
other jobs. When the foot was off it was put " in
pickle", and after a time it was dissected before the
three assistants and they were shown the honeycombing
which the disease had effected. This was in Stanley
Jenkins's early days, before Young's arrival. It is a
sample of the way in which the hospital service was
built up ; teaching, teaching, and yet again teaching.
Every opportunity had to be seized to open the mind,
and increase the usefulness of such material as was to

170 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

hand. As soon as a man had mastered a subject he
was set the task of teaching it, as far as he was able, to
another man who would subsequently be further drilled
and instructed by the doctor himself. Soon T'ien-yu
replaced Li Jen as dispenser whilst the latter was doing
the minor operation on the pouched eyelid, an operation
which was so common in the Sianfu Hospital. The next
year saw a quick schoolboy learning dispensing includ-
ing, in his words, the " Latin " language from T'ien-yu,
and, in course of time, the doctor, whilst T'ien-yu had
become an anaesthetist. Ultimately, when Mr. Li Jen
could be spared he, along with three senior students from
the Mission's Middle School, was sent to take a full
medical course in Hankow.

And so the staff grew.

But besides this technical staff there was growing up
a little hospital world. As an instance, one thinks of the
milling department. Since " mo-mo " (small loaves of
steamed bread) and " mien-t'iao " (the Chinese vermi-
celli) formed the staple diet, flour had to be bought in
great quantities. At a later date this was contracted
for with a flour merchant, who delivered such quantities
as might be required at a fixed price. But in the early
years wheat was bought after harvest, in a district away
north of the Wei River where the price was low, trans-
ported to Sianfu and stored in the hospital, which had
its own corn-grinding mill, with a couple of men to
undertake the milling with the help of two mules.
Night and day the " chug, chug, chug-a-chug " of the
flour bolting could be heard from that corner of the large
stable yard.

The preparation of the cotton-wool was another activity.
To use beautiful white cotton-wool in neat blue paper
wrapping and red-cross label might do for occasional work,

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 171

but on the scale demanded in Sianfu the cost would have
been prohibitive. Here, again, a man was detailed to
buy the cotton from the fields at the right time of the
year. The cleaning and sterilizing of the stored cotton
took the entire time of a man who had been carefully
trained for this work.

The hospital beds were formed of three planks nailed
to cross-pieces, laid across a couple of trestles. The
covering was of rough Chinese matting, upon which the
patient's own bedding was laid. Together with repairs
and minor alterations as to doors and windows and the
hospital had to be constantly altered as the work de-
veloped, a thing easily effected with mud-wall buildings
this meant a joiner always on the premises.

The thick, crude vegetable oil which could be used
impartially for lighting or cooking purposes, and which
fed the dim wicks in the wards, meant further storage
and a man as lamplighter and cleaner. Bandages had
to be made from native cloth, and took up the time of
yet another assistant. The heating was supplied by
charcoal set in iron braziers upon a rough wooden frame
that could be moved about as required. The kitchen
was a little imperium in imperio by itself.

And so on through the various needs of a hospital
A.S.C. working far from railway facilities and with the
need of economy always before its eyes.

It is evident that the business manager, a Chinese who
had started years before as a coolie, and who by sheer
ability had raised himself to a position of buyer first
to the Mission schools and later to the hospital, had
large opportunities of making an illicit fortune. Yet for
the foreign doctor himself to attempt the buying would
probably have meant paying out more money, and an
expenditure of time that would have strangled his

172 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

medical work. All he could do was to check accounts
as well as possible and occasionally, from independent
sources, compare his buyer's prices. Every foreigner
who has heavy transactions in buying or selling will
know how limited are his powers of tracking down mis-
appropriations. Also it should, in fairness, be remem-
bered that the man acting thus is only working along
lines immemorial in the country, and which he can see
paralleled all about him to-day. He did his work well
at least others were not allowed to rob the hospital !
and showed a real concern for the hospital's welfare
and a jealousy for its advancement. Moreover, when
such a man's peculations are tracked down and the
offender dismissed, there still remains the problem of
finding if possible a more honest successor.

The only remedy in this generation is to add a foreigner
to the staff who shall give his whole time to the manage-
ment of the service staff and to the buying. The ex-
cellent work done by Mr. G. G. Wilson for the old Medical
College in Peking, and by Mr. Frank Harmon for the
Tsinan Medical College and Hospital, has not only
shown the way to economy of mission funds, but has
been invaluable in releasing medical missionaries who are
thus enabled to devote their whole energy to their true
work. For them it is an unspeakable relief to turn
over questions of the kitchen, the heating, the coolie
service, etc., to a friendly colleague, and to have no
anxiety as to details of disbursements or receipt of fees.
The strength of brilliant men like Stanley Jenkins, of
sensitive souls like Andrew Young, was wasted sadly
upon work of this description, their usefulness curtailed,
and their spirit almost broken.

Where the mission is unable to spare such a man, the
only philosophical course is to regard the " squeeze "

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 173

made by your Chinese business manager as a part of his
salary unofficially recognized. Whether this is not the
costlier expedient for the mission is a question that
must be settled at head-quarters. It certainly entails an
enormous cost in time and superintendence, as well as
in heart-searching and anxiety to the foreign doctor
in charge, whilst it is at least possible that the amount
saved by the foreign business manager would be con-
siderably more than the difference between his salary
and that of the old-time assistant.

To a sensitive, ultra-scrupulous soul like Andrew Young
this problem was one long agony. To know that the
Society was being robbed, and yet not to be able to
remedy this wrong, rode him like a nightmare.

And, unfortunately, the evil cannot be confined to
one man. Its very nature involves a widespread con-
spiracy. The man who buys has not only to square
the sellers, he has to bully or cajole or otherwise silence
those workers in the hospital who are in a position to
detect his methods. It is only when the inevitable
happens at last and the man is discovered in flagrante
delicto and, being dismissed, can no longer overawe his
former underlings or colleagues, that one discovers how
elaborate was the system of deception and how many
workers had been drawn into it and tainted by it.

From the small household of the poorest teacher whose
cook " goes to market ", to the huge Government depart-
ments in Peking, the system runs, and one can only try
by constant care to minimize the temptations placed in
the buyer's way. For the Christian worker, and especially
for the doctor who sees so much of the sordid side of
life, real grace is needed that such care should not be
accompanied by harshness and unchristian temper, still
more that it give not place to an established cynicism or

174 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

to indifference to moral issues. The safeguard lies in the
work itself, the insight into the many good traits in
human nature, and particularly Chinese human nature,
which the work gives, and, above all, by a deeper realiza-
tion of our dependence upon our spiritual and fundamental
resources.

When he comes to his direct work the missionary
doctor happily sees much to correct any tendency to
pessimism, for here the many virtues of the Chinese can
be seen. Perhaps the most striking of these is their
patience. Take as an example their patience under
restrictions which must have been for them sadly irk-
some. There were no trained nurses in the Sianfu
Hospital when Young first joined the staff. Patients
had to have a relative or friend with them to look after
them. As they often came from remote places where
they had never seen a foreigner before, much less heard
of his hospital regulations, one can understand that
it was difficult to keep much discipline in the wards.
The wonder is that things went so well. The adapta-
bility of the Chinese to new conditions and their patience
in conforming to regulations the reasons for which they
did not understand, made things smoother than one
could have hoped;

An instance of the way in which the hospital develop-
ment was influenced by peculiar local conditions is
provided by the case of the Sianfu beggars. The case
of a tramp admitted into the hospital in those early days
is worth noting, because it was so typical of what was
always recurring.

The beggar problem is always a difficulty for the
medical missionary; how to help the one case which
needs help and not at the same time to swell the coffers
of the beggars' guild or put into worthless hands money

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 175

which would be spent in opium at the close of the day.
" We went for a walk outside the suburbs the other
evening just about sunset," writes Andrew Young, " when
we stumbled outside a kind of beggars' sleeping-place.
It was simply a large hollow formed by the removal of
clay to make bricks in days gone by. Caves were cut
into the sides, and these formed the resting-places of the
beggars a few of them. They form quite a large
community in the city. They are mostly clad in sack-
cloth and rags, have long unkempt hair, and often add
to the loathsomeness of their appearance by cutting their
heads or bodies and letting the blood stream down over
them. Theirs is indeed an animal existence. I suppose
it is so attractive to them because they don't have to
work. But they have a hard time in winter. One of
that class a boy came to the hospital about two years
ago and was taken in and cured. He aspired to better
things and so he was sent to school, where he has shown
exemplary diligence. He is now, I believe, a church
member."

A mission hospital has to devise such means as it can
to guard against being exploited by the merely greedy
the people who can afford to pay for their food and
medicine and who would pay far more than the hospital
charges to an old-time, needle-probing Chinese herbalist.
Also, as far as can be done without hurt to the initial
purposes of the hospital, such an institution should be
made to support itself and not be unnecessarily a charge
upon funds collected at home; but when all this is
said there will always be cases of real indigence, in
which, should the Christian hospital refuse shelter and aid
the victim will die untended and in pain. Looking back
upon those Sianfu years under Jenkins and Young and
Robertson one sees the rough-and-ready methods

176 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

inseparable from the primitive conditions being gradually
replaced by a proper hospital system, a nursing staff
organized, dormitory and refectory and dispensary rules
gradually tightened, but with it all always the loophole
left for the broken wayfarers of life who had no other
asylum. The outhouses continued to be rilled some-
times with men whom to go near was a physical trial-
and at times the walls of the stable-yard would have a
lean-to of straw thatch placed against them, beneath
which, on a mat and a bed quilt, lay some refugee. By
the light of a storm lantern you picked your way after
the doctor as he went round these open-air " wards " at
night and, however cynical you might have felt yourself
growing half an hour previously, you took fresh heart
and found new courage to believe in goodness.

The beggar referred to above, who seemed to be in a
dying condition when admitted, made a wonderful rally.
" He was at worship to-day for the first time. He is an
opium smoker besides the trouble for which he was
admitted, and is under treatment for breaking off the
opium. We have four of these opium cases at present,
all of them being under treatment for other ailments."
In this connection one is reminded that a large propor-
tion of the opium victims in China became what they
are to-day through taking opium to deaden pain whilst
suffering from some disease.

A feature of the work to which Young never could
accustom, still less reconcile himself, was the long delay
between the first recognition of a disease or the meeting
with some accident, and the arrival of the patient at
the hospital. Many would only consent to come after
delay had made the case hopeless. If they had been
brought earlier they could have been saved easily, but
it had been left too late. This was particularly the case

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 177

with the women. His experience on the Congo does not
seem to have prepared him for the reluctance of the
Chinese to call in foreign medicals, particularly for the
women sufferers. It is still one of the greatest trials of
medical missionaries in China.

Young's first operation in China was, characteristically
enough, upon one of the poor outcasts. He saw him
again in February, 1908, at the yearly church meetings,
to which the members came from far and near. In
1905 this man had been a regular tramp dirty, ragged,
very nearly blind ; now he was a clean, cheerful-looking,
strong fellow with perfect sight. He had become a
church member; " There are some bright spots," Young
adds, " in the medical work, as you see. This is one of
the direct results from it, as the man had had no previous
interest in or knowledge of Christian truth."

And here we might consider one phase of the medical
missionary's work which man after man that I have
known on the field has always put in the very forefront :
the evangelistic side of the hospital. Dr. Stanley Jenkins
was, and Dr. Harold Balme still is, unsurpassed amongst
the Society's missionaries as preachers in the Chinese
language. Andrew Young, though coming later to the
country, attained real freedom in this work, and it was
a great joy as well as a great burden to him to preach
the Cross.

Young had arrived in Sianfu in time for Christmas,
and it was announced that they were to have a short
service in the hospital on Christmas morning. The
evangelist who was in charge of the city central preaching
hall took the lead, and spoke for an hour and a half,
whereupon Young remarks, " I wonder what an ordinary,
or long, service conducted by that man will be like".
He was to learn. Of late years, owing possibly to the

M

178 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

modifying influence of other workers Anglicans,
Y.M.C.A., and Seventh Day Adventists it has been
borne in upon the Shensi Christian hearer that possibly
a service can be concluded under two hours and a half.

The mid-week prayer meeting, a meeting held in
English, he found a great help. " If the prayer meeting
is the pulse of any work, then I should judge that the
work here is in a pretty healthy condition, because I
found the meeting most refreshing and stimulating."
Those were the days when we used to read a sermon,
and that first afternoon a sermon of Dr, Jowett, "The
Power of the Cross ", was read, " For we preach Christ
crucified " being the text.

The ride to the Gospel village referred to above 1 was
due to a half-yearly Church Assembly which was held
there. Between the meetings the doctor attended an
out-patient department and gave such help as he could
in minor cases, serious cases being sent in to the hospital
in Sianfu. He found it slow work at first obtaining a
diagnosis through an interpreter. The last meeting of
the conference was a communion service. He was asked
to speak a few words through interpretation. The
chapel was filled. " I trust real lasting impressions
were made by the word which was under consideration.
I could not help thinking as I looked at them that there
were enough Christians there to set the whole province
on fire. May they be filled with the power which is
necessary if that end is to be attained ! "

But though they took their full share in public preach-
ing and personal evangelism, the surgical duties of the
medical missionaries made it inevitable that the major
part of such work should be done by the Chinese evan-
gelists, and perhaps one cannot better describe the work

1 Page 148.

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 179

of such men than by painting the portrait of one of
their number.

It was about July, 1906, when the regular hospital
evangelist was away on his summer holiday and needed
a substitute, that Mr. Chou first came to Young's notice,
to be his delight and his bewilderment for years. He
had been a professional teller of historic stories. The
profession of " raconteur " is a recognized one in China,
and more than invitations to dinner are its reward
though these are not wanting. The cinema and gramo-
phone may starve the story-teller out ultimately, but
one hopes it will not be yet. It is a pleasant sight to
see a tea-shop in a large city in the cool of a summer
evening with fifty or a hundred lightly very lightly
clad workers sitting at square tables drinking Chinese
tea and listening to a long novelle as told with gusto and
dramatic action by the professional. Generally these
stories have a historic background and come near to
that Italian basic material so much used by Shakespeare.
The nearest modern equivalent would, I presume, be the
Waverley novels.

A man thus trained to hold a public audience and to
seize upon the salient and picturesque points in a
narrative has, upon becoming a Christian preacher,
great advantages. We have never had in Shensi a
preacher who could so appeal to a popular audience as
could Mr. Chou. But the very Bohemianism of his early
training meant that any carefully thought out construc-
tive series of sermons was beyond him, and placed side
by side with men who were constantly doing such work,
he seemed shallow to the Christians of long standing,
used to listening day after day to sermons of forty-five
minutes' length upon the Epistle to the Romans or the
prophecies of Isaiah, and who had not always the wit

180 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

to see how precious, for one particular phase of the work,
were the gifts of the newcomer. The man who could
hold a popular audience on the street or public square
or in the street preaching hall " lost face " when it came
to taking his turn as the Sunday preacher for the church
service, and still more so when at quarterly conference
meetings he had to attempt a serious sermon before
students and elders. The Bohemianism came out also
in a more unfortunate way ; he could not live within his
income. He had always lived from hand to mouth ; a
good series of audiences at tea-shops would allow him
to buy something on the spur of the moment in the way
of clothes or books, flowers or ornaments, which might
take his eye ; whilst the constant dining in restaurants,
where patrons would show their appreciation by inviting
him to a good dinner, made him not a gourmand but
somewhat of a gourmet. And it is no use expecting
that each man who becomes a sincere believer in the
Christian faith is going to be suddenly wise in all aspects
of life. It is as unreasonable to expect that Mr. Chou
should suddenly become the staid and serious student of
ascetic and regular habits, as it is to expect that Feng
Yu-hsiang, the Christian General who has been thrust
into such prominence in public life, should with his
Christianity which is undeniable and sincere develop
in a few years all the political wisdom and finesse necessary
to hold his own with the trained professional manipulators
of politics and parliament who are so much in evidence
in Peking to-day. It will be understood therefore why
Mr. Chou was the cause of mingled feelings to one who
desired above everything that the hospital should be a
place where sufferers might learn to know the Grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ for themselves. No Chinese
evangelist in the city could so help the unversed in

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 181

Christian truth to grasp its fundamentals. But the
bewilderment came in when one had to fit in Mr. Chou's
salary which had to be on the usual scale for fear of
showing favouritism, since of all lands China is the land
of trades unionism with the way of living to which he
had been accustomed before he gave up his old work
for the new.

But the man's work ! Day by day he would move
about in the wards, sitting first by this bed and then by
that, setting the patient at his ease, inquiring into his
progress, with a word of sympathy here and encourage-
ment there, and leading up always and always naturally
to the work and love of the Good Physician. And he
didn't preach sermons! Before his arrival the good
hospital evangelist had only the one method to assemble
the patients together and preach to them ; firstly,
secondly, thirdly, and so on. Chou broke up that method
and taught what personal evangelism might be.

One of the medical missionaries' real loyalties is the
way they themselves turn up to " li-pai " the morning
or evening daily worship, and the long, long Sunday
services. Here is the lady doctor Mrs. Young in her
first Shensi days : "I went to early morning prayers
this morning and it was cold. I kept wondering how
some of the home people would enjoy kneeling, a morning
like this, on a cold stone floor, with not one bit of heat
in the whole building, at that hour of the morning and
with no breakfast inside. An hour seems rather long
when one cannot understand."

" Morning li-pai " is a feature of the Shensi Mission
the fame of which has gone abroad, carried by travellers
who have, when passing through the city, spent a day
or two as the Mission's guests. It lasted at least an hour,
of which three quarters went into biblical exposition.' It

182 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

built up a body of well-instructed Christians. Andrew
Young revelled in it ; even as a method of acquiring a
Chinese vocabulary it had its advantages, and as strong
meat for a man brought up in the old Covenanting
traditions it was additionally acceptable. In October it
was pleasant enough. In the depths of winter it was,
as Mrs. Young describes it, sufficiently heroic. And if
the daily morning worship was thus, what would the full
Sunday service be ? Yet no members of the Mission
were more faithful in their attendance at those long
sessions than the medicals who might so easily have
pleaded fatigue. And to-day in a large University like
Tsinan, where there are Arts, Theological and Medical
Schools side by side, the same thing holds.

From its first opening the hospital was always full
except at harvest time and the Chinese New Year. After
the Revolution even these relief periods were uncertain.
Eye cases there always were in great numbers except
when the wounded from the battlefields crowded them
out. Tubercular and venereal disease accounted for
many more cases. Victims of minor accidents were
always dropping in, and sometimes an explosion would
fill up a ward. One ghastly explosion in a match factory
entailed much work for the hospital. On another
occasion a number of soldiers from the old-style Manchu
guard got into trouble. (Incidentally one is glad to
have known those quaint old-world warriors with their
muzzle-loading guns, their wonderful swords and spears,
their remarkable horsemanship with its bow and arrow
accompaniment, and their civility. One would gladly
exchange the modern military product for them. The
old-style warrior was certainly quite as efficient in policing

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 183

the country as is his successor, and he could be depended
upon to obey his officer.) There had been long continued
rains in the province, the roads were become rivers, and
there was danger that the crops would be washed away.
So the soldiers of the east barracks carried out an old
Chinese custom ; that of firing at the clouds in order to
stop the rain. They were engaged in this when a spark
from one of the guns lighted on a bag of gunpowder which
at once exploded, with the result that two men were
burned so extensively over head and face and neck that
their case was hopeless. But they were brought along
to the Mission hospital in case anything could be done.
" It was a job getting them cleaned and dressed, and we
were working at them till about ten o'clock at night.
Then of course they needed to be watched constantly.
(Some of the soldiers from the barracks took this duty
in turns.) They needed to be dressed daily, each time
taking an hour and a half at least. One died on the
Monday, the other lingered till Saturday morning, when
he also passed away. We trust that though we were
not permitted to save their lives the work done in
ministering to them will not be devoid of effect on their
friends."

It was in 1907 that Young first had brought to him a
victim of a certain form of Chinese justice ; a soldier
who had undergone the " light bamboo " punishment.
The victim is laid down on his stomach, whilst a light
flat piece of bamboo is struck lightly but repeatedly upon
the back of his thighs. The tiny blood vessels under the
skin are broken and the remorseless tap, tap, tapping of
the bamboo on the swollen and discoloured limb goes on
till the number of strokes has reached the required
amount in the hundreds. The result is gangrene. In
this particular case the man's only chance of life, when

184 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

he reached the hospital, was to have the leg amputated.
Naturally the poor fellow shrank from it. In China
amputation is dreaded even more than it would be at
home, the patients generally preferring to risk loss of
life itself to the loss of a limb. The soldier, however, very
soon learned to trust this surgeon, who said that in the
operation lay his only chance of life, and through his
trust in the surgeon's character as he saw it he brought
himself to consent. The operation was successful.
Faith in another had brought the man to physical
recovery. He remained long enough in the hospital to
learn much of Christian truth, and it was Young's hope
that such a man might learn a Greater Faith still.

In later years when this barbarous punishment was
continued after the Revolution, for republican as
previously for imperial soldiery, Young, who by that
time could make what representations he wished, sent
in an ultimatum to the army authorities that if they
continued to load up the hospital with these unnecessary
cases of horrible wounds due to this senseless bambooing
they could not have treatment for their casualties. The
hospital could not undertake both. What other punish-
ment was substituted we never knew, but for that time,
and in that district, the dreadful practice ceased.

Patients who were insane were brought in occasionally.
Mrs. Young speaks at one time of being anxious for
Andrew to return from a trip in order to deal with a
poor crazy old woman who was blind as well as an
opium smoker. Her son had brought her to the hospital
and then disappeared. Nothing could be done for her,
and she was quite unmanageable at times. Ultimately
the hospital evangelist took the old woman back to her
village, only to be told that her son evidently in fear
of being again charged with the care of his mother had

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 185

disappeared. He was eventually found and the mother
left with him. The first insane case that was brought to
the hospital was in 1903, and the manner of the arrival
shocked us greatly. The poor patient, a man of about
thirty, came loaded with heavy chains and led by his
relatives. It seemed a brutal exhibition, yet in an
inland province where there are no asylums for the
insane, and the family is too poor to depute one of the
members constantly to guard the patient, it is difficult to
see what else could be done, if the community is to be
safeguarded from the danger of sudden outbreak.

Here are a few typical cases showing how the medical
missionary spent his days : " We are pretty busy, lately
having had nearly twice as many patients as we are
supposed to find room for. One young fellow was
brought in about ten days ago with his thigh bone broken
in two places. He had fallen from a roof in the West
Suburb. He was a difficult case to manage. The
splints would be all fixed carefully and satisfactorily one
day, and when I went into the ward next day they were
off, lying beside him. This was done several times, but
yesterday he seemed to have come to his senses and to
be getting on better.

" Another boy came in some little time ago with
disease of the lower jaw. About three-quarters of the
lower jaw was dead, and the smell from it was fearful. It
had to be taken away with all the teeth attached, so
that all he has left is about a quarter of the jaw on the
right side with two teeth attached. He began to
improve, however, right away, and is now nearly all right.
It does not make so much difference in the shape of his
face as you would imagine. He is able to eat quite well,
and is altogether in a much better condition than when
he came in, when one really could not have stayed in

186 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

the same room with him." A month later: "His face
is much less disfigured than it was, and indeed I caught
him looking at himself admiringly in the glass, just this
morning." Two weeks later: "The little boy went
back home to-day. It is rather a strange coincidence
that his name is Ch'in, because he really has not got
much of a chin left. His home is at a place about
120 miles away from here, near a town which has never
been very favourably disposed towards foreigners."

The carbuncle is a constant trouble in North China,
where the air is so full always, except in the rainy season,
of fine dust. " An elderly banker came in with a car-
buncle five or six inches across. It had to be almost
entirely excised, leaving a hole about five inches across
and one in depth. That, however, is rapidly healing,
and he looks like a different man from what he was when
he came in."

One patient taken in with tubercular glands in the
neck had to have forty good-sized glands, many of them
as large as a big chestnut, taken away from one side of
his neck. " The other side remains to be done," con-
tinues the doctor, " and will probably yield an equal
number." One is inclined to wonder how much neck
would be left, but a fortnight later : "I operated on
the other side a little later and removed an almost equal
number, so that altogether we must have taken between
70 and 80 away." It is comforting to read the added
sentence : " he is nearly all right now."

In connection with a case of paralysis one gets a
glimpse of those Shensi surgeons which sweetens one's
estimate of humanity. " One little girl is in a pitiable
condition. She is paralysed from the middle of her
back downwards from disease of the spine, and has
frightful sores, due to the diseased condition of the

THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY 187

nerves supplying the skin. She is just skin and bone.
It takes a long time twice a day to dress her." The
care with which they themselves so often did these
dressings, and the pains they took to teach their assistants
to copy their gentleness in this matter, is one of the vivid
pictures which one loves to recall in connection with
Andrew Young and his two colleagues, Stanley Jenkins
and Cecil Robertson.

Footbinding was practised rigidly in Shensi, and the
women's feet were unusually small. Writing from San
Yuan when he was building the hospital there, Young
says : " We had a very sad case the other night. A
man brought along his little daughter of eight years old,
whose mother had died two or three months ago. The
little child had been sent to her prospective mother-in-
law's house, and there she had had her feet bound so
tightly that gangrene had set in. The toes and front
part of one foot were already gone, and their place was
occupied by a foul ulcer, while the corresponding part
of the other foot was all black, and fast going the same
way. We had no place there, and sent her on to the
hospital in Sianfu. She was a nice little girl, very
bright and intelligent. I trust she may get all right
under treatment, and not only so but be brought under
the influence of the Gospel."

There is a reaction in these days against the British
and American system of the marriage choice being left
to the contracting parties, and at times we are pointed
to the excellence of the Chinese system. However it
may work out in the theories of the sociologists, one
cannot help remembering even at the risk of being
labelled " sentimentalist " : how the system can work for
" a nice little girl, bright and intelligent ", who for the toes
and front part of her foot has substituted " a foul ulcer."

188 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

A case at San Yuan to which he was called specially
was one of dropsy. He drew off twenty pints of fluid
from the abdomen, which relieved the patient con-
siderably. " I told him that if he got swollen again he
was to be brought to the hospital ". The doctor could
not repeatedly leave his work to cross the Wei River,
which might prevent his return.

One of the pretty sights at the hospital was to see
children brought sitting in a basket slung from one end
of the peasant father's bamboo pole, whilst his market
produce balanced the pole at the other end. Sometimes
it was one deep basket strapped over the man's shoulders.
" A small boy of six was brought in from Kaoling, thirty
miles away, with a big piece of dead bone sticking out
of his leg, the result of an accident nearly a year before. It
was just about as foul as it could be, having been plastered
up with dirty rags, etc. The little chap's father carried
him here in a basket on his back, he sitting cross-legged
on the top of it. These two returned home the other
day, the small boy practically all right again."

Young's letters home are a mine of interesting informa-
tion about cases that came to the hospital. A layman
cannot say how they would appear in a medical case-
book, but to an ordinary reader they give a very vivid
picture of his days, whilst to one who reads them sym-
pathising with the master passion of Andrew Young's
life, they are alive with witness as to the way in
which the medical missionary can interpret daily and
hourly his Lord's words, " I was sick and ye visited
Me. . . . Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these
My brethren ..."

CHAPTER VIII

" The Doctor, the Mission, and the World

at large."

BUSY as the doctors were in the hospital work they
were well in touch with the general life of the Mission.
Not only was their counsel valued, their work, in many
cases, was also closely related to the general programme.
This comes out clearly in connection with the question
of extending the Mission's responsibilities in accordance
with the terms of the Arthington Bequest, which placed
a sum approximating to 500,000 at the disposal of the
Baptist Missionary Society, of which sum a considerable
amount had been allotted for new work in the Shensi
Province. In October, 1907, a deputation from home
arrived, consisting of the B.M.S. Secretary, the Rev. C. E.
Wilson, and the Rev. W. Y. Fullerton, both now secre-
taries of the Society. Looking back to-day it is an open
question whether the possibilities opened up by these
funds did not lead us in Shensi to attempt to run before
we could walk. The new programme was far too exacting
for the strength of the Shensi Mission as then constituted.
In the end that programme was attempted, with the
hope that reinforcements would be speedily forthcoming
to justify the new departures, and it has been the story
of a flying column which had ultimately to retreat.
Happily the value of the experimental pioneer tasks

189

190 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

then undertaken was not lost, and is to-day incorporated
in the work of the American Congregationalist Mission. 1
All this, however, lay hidden in the lap of the future,
when in 1907 Bell and Watson made their way to where
the Great Wall of China struggles to show itself above
the drifting sands of the Mongolian Ordos desert at
Yiilinfu, in the extreme north of Shensi.

For the Sianfu Hospital the decision to open new
stations in the far north seemed a serious blow. If the
hospital was to do the work that the home head-quarters
and Stanley Jenkins had planned, it would need not only
its 1907 staff, but further helpers; since breakdowns
and furloughs need to be considered in any elaborate
institutional work. Yet it was certain that missionaries
would not consent to open stations in the north unless
they could hope for an all-round work 'evangelistic,
educational and medical within a reasonable period.
That such work was highly desirable all were agreed, but
the wisdom of weakening the forces at Sianfu in order
to open up fresh work at Yiilinfu, Suiteh or Yenanfu
the three large northern centres was certainly question-
able. For institutional work so highly specialized as a
hospital of the type aimed at in Sianfu, such a weaken-
ing of staff and such a mortgage upon future medical
reinforcements threatened sheer disaster. The matter
affected Andrew Young immediately, since the small
hospital in a remote, pioneer district appealed to all
that was deepest in him. No man was ever less of a
politician, no man ever more loyal to the group and the
work in which he was set, but it was clear that if a call
was made for a volunteer to go north he would be the
first to respond. As for Mrs. Young, she would have
gone cheerfully into the wilderness ; it would only have
1 The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,

THE DOCTOR, THE MISSION, AND THE WORLD 191

meant one more removal, " hitting the trail " once more.
When Bell's and Watson's reports began to come in from
the north, Young's letters home grew very full of the new
hopes and plans, and one sees how dear to his heart was
the idea of the hospital, restricted to some fifty beds,
which would have given him more time to deal
individually with his patients, soul and body.

The Suiteh-Yulinfu effort is an old story now, and the
work which the Baptist Missionary Society started in
the districts north of Yenanfu they have been able, as
we have said, to turn over to the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Since the latter
in 1907 had not the strength to start work in the district
we cannot regard the British effort as wasted, though it
is well that we have come to-day nearer to realizing that
we are apt to stretch our lines dangerously far. Yet
incorrigible as the Baptist Missionary Society and the
London Missionary Society may at times seem in this
respect to the cautious and the statesmanlike, they
have on occasion been wonderfully justified in their
ventures when the Chinese Christians have stepped in,
taking over work the continuance of which had proved
beyond the strength of the home societies which initiated
it. A hospital was built in the year 1914 in Yenanfu,
and a doctor placed there for a time, but it could not be
kept open, since the Sianfu needs, occasioned by a series
of breakdowns, made it necessary to call in all available
help. What did actually materialize out of the more
ambitious scheme was a hospital at San Yuan, twenty-
seven miles away from Sianfu, which could serve as a
base for the chain of out-stations running up to Yenanfu,
nine days away, and Yenanfu itself. That a second,
though much smaller, hospital should have been built so
near to Sianfu may appear sufficiently surprising. The

192 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

reasons were the impossibility at certain seasons of the
year of crossing the rivers dividing the northern stations
from Sianfu, and the fact that the largest amount of
the old church work was not in Sianfu, from which the
missionaries had been so long excluded, but in the country
districts north of the Wei River, where the missionaries
had first found refuge. For this district San Yuan was
the natural centre. The San Yuan hospital once decided
upon, there was no question as to who was fitted to direct
it. And so it was that Andrew Young came after all to
the small hospital of his dreams. To him who never
clamoured for what he wanted, much less tried to engineer
a providence for himself, the reward came. He was
always willing to wait God's time, and the time was
fulfilled. Early in 1910 he was assigned to San Yuan,
and before the end of that year he was busy building.
The revolution and the fighting that went on in the
province kept him at work amongst the wounded at
Sianfu Hospital for some years ; the deaths of Jenkins
and Robertson in 1913 made it impossible for him to
leave the Sianfu staff until the Christmas of 1920 ; but
in 1921 he got to San Yuan at last.

But during those years the San Yuan work was carried
on by Dr. G. A. Charter and his wife, who, as doctor
and nurse, gave themselves unstintingly to the medical
and evangelistic sides of the work, and by their modesty,
their unselfishness, and their earnestness, taught some of
us lessons for which we are still grateful.

One claim upon the doctors of Shensi that kept them
in constant touch with another part of mission life was
the health of the scholars in the Mission schools. At
the start the plan which was followed was for a sick
scholar to be given a permit to go to the hospital and
be examined there. In later years, however, it was

THE DOCTOR, THE MISSION AND THE WORLD 193

found more convenient for the doctors to come out
once a week to see scholars in the East Suburb. It was
a change for them, and they enjoyed the ride, the com-
parative green and quiet of the suburb after the noisy,
crowded city, and the relaxation from hospital restric-
tions. Moreover, the relations between school and
hospital were very close. There were hopeful cases of
young people who had been in the hospital and had
become dear to the doctors' hearts. If an arrangement
could be made for such to enter the Boys' or Girls' School,
it was done. The case of the beggar boy has already
been referred to. 1 The school dormitories, like the
hospital wards, were apt to get overstocked as " the
doctor's hopefuls " continued to come in. (The medical
conscience on the question of the cubic feet of space
required by scholar or patient is apt to vary according
to circumstance.) On the other hand, the school supplied
a steady succession of recruits to the hospital staff. The
senior class usually had two or three boys to be coached
specially in mathematics and chemistry, since they
looked forward to becoming medical students, supported
by the Sianfu Hospital, at one of the Medical Colleges at
the coast.

When the school nobly tried to spare the doctor from
attendance in the suburb there were apt to be curious
results. There was the case of a boy to whom had been
administered what was thought to be a dose of Mag.
Sulph., a dose which, as it eventuated, had come from
the case holding the Zinc. Sulph., so much used for eye
lotion. When the Zinc. Sulph. finally made the boy
vomit, great was the relief of the schoolmaster. Another
amateur attempt which turned out to be a failure in the
Girls' School had to do with one of those constant troubles
1 See Chapter VII,, p. 175.

N

194 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

to which a mission school in the interior is subject,
particularly if it cannot afford well-built premises of its
own, but has to use makeshift mud-brick houses. The
trouble was that very unromantic disease known as the
" itch ". This is a nuisance which will insist upon being
recognized, and takes a most exasperating toll upon the
time of missionary doctors. Mrs. Young, being an M.D.,
came in for a good deal of medical work in the suburb,
where she was supposed to be studying the Chinese
language. Here is a picture which so many of us
who have had to look after mission schools in China
recognize only too well : " This has been a very interesting
week for me from a medical point of view. You know
I am responsible for the girls at the B.Z.M. 1 School
across the road. Several of them have that improper,
but very popular, disease (in China) called the ' itch '.
Miss Beckingsale has invented a method of treatment of
which she is very proud, and last week she tried it on
the poor victims. I went over one afternoon and found
the girls, about twelve of them, sitting on three or four
backless forms, each wrapped carefully in her own
wadded quilt, with the smoke crawling out about their
necks. There were hot bricks on the ground underneath
them, with burning sulphur on each. Miss Beckingsale
and Miss Russell were trotting about tucking the quilts
tighter so that the smoke shouldn't be wasted. It was
a very funny sight ! The scheme did not work, so this
week Miss Beckingsale consulted me, and my little plan
is now in progress. Tuesday afternoon we had a lot of
water heated, and we went to work with scrubbing
brushes hard ones and plenty of soft soap in a big
tub. I do wish that I had a photograph. Miss Becking-
sale is short and very dignified, and it made her quite
1 The Baptist Zenana Mission (see Chapter V., p. 131.)

THE DOCTOR, THE MISSION AND THE WORLD 195

breathless before we finished them off with a plentiful
application of sulphur ointment. I hope that none of
them will die. Baths at this season of the year in China
are supposed to be fatal. The poor little things were
between laughing and crying all the time. It did hurt
them, because they had nasty sores on their poor little
legs and arms, and the brush was very hard and the
scrubbing vigorous. The process was repeated yesterday
by themselves, and will be again to-day, and then I do
hope that they will be better, poor little scraps ! The
women who have charge of them, and are responsible for
keeping them clean, have bound feet, and cannot move
quickly. The girls have healthy big feet and can run
away so that the women can't catch them to wash and
comb them and this is the result. Miss Beckingsale
and Miss Russell do their very best, but I do think the
keeping the girls clean and well is much harder than
teaching them. It seems to be the same with the boys
though I have nothing to do with them ! " (C. M. Y.)
The poor boys, with whom Mrs. Andrew so primly
" has nothing to do ", had their own troubles at the
hands of their schoolmaster and Dr. Jenkins. Oh, the
sulphur ointment, the soft soap, and the hard brushes
we used ! Finally we hit on a much better plan. Twelve
miles from Sianfu, at Lintung, is a splendid sulphur
spring. Here are noble bath-houses and stately pleasure
pavilions similar to those farther north, where Kubla
Khan possibly cured his noble ills. But there is also a
large pool for the poor, the halt, and the needy. School-
boys always come within this last category, and so to
Lintung we dispatched the whole infected crowd. And
there they stayed and bathed and revelled and had a
delightful time till they could show a clean bill of health.
Perhaps for Andrew Young and his wife the greatest

196 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

asset in living out in the East Suburb was that it brought
them into constant touch with Jennie Beckingsale. 1
To go out with her into the adjoining villages, or to be
with her while she did " follow-up " work amongst the
women who had been patients in the hospital, was an
inestimable boon to Mrs. Young, who as a doctor could
advise upon the ailments discovered by the neighbours
and when did they not discover them ? whilst Miss
Beckingsale, in her fluent Chinese, preached those bright,
telling Gospel sermons in which she was so inimitable.
Once when a peasant father, bringing his little girl to
school, kept the schoolmistress a long time listening to
vexatious and trifling details, a foreign colleague standing
by said, " It is good of you to let them take up so much
of your time with these little things ". The answer came
in a flash : " But they are not ' little things ' to them ".
To range oneself thus alongside a groping intelligence and
rightly to estimate proportions as seen by it, is surely
the mark of the real teacher.

Being in charge of the health of the foreigners in
Sianfu and district was an added labour, and no small
one, for the medical missionaries. To-day arrangements
have had to be tightened, and the sick foreigner comes
to the hospital for treatment or should do so. But
in the early days, when there was no accommodation
for a foreign patient unless it was in the doctor's own
narrow quarters, it seemed to be the natural thing for
the doctor to go to the sick person's house. There was
only an occasional business man in the city since Sianfu
is not even yet opened by treaty to foreign trade and
the foreign patients came mostly from the Roman
Catholic, the Swedish Alliance, the China Inland, or
the Baptist Mission. In the case of the Roman Catholic
1 See Chapter V., p. 128.

THE DOCTOR, THE MISSION AND THE WORLD 197

Mission the patient might be in the city itself or at the
Roman Catholic country headquarters near Kaoling. A
call to this latter place generally meant being at least three
days away from hospital work. The Roman Catholic
losses, particularly through typhus, were very heavy
" Last week the Roman Catholic bishop was very ill
with typhus fever, and on Monday he died. Andrew
had had a very anxious time about him, as you may
suppose, spending one whole night and part of another
there. One of the nuns is still very ill with the same
disease. This is the fifth bishop that they have lost
since 1901 [written in 1907]. He had been visiting the
out-stations when he was taken ill, and came back only
a few days before his death, which he had expected,
having had what they call the ' last rites of the church '
before he started back on his journey to Sianfu. He
was to have gone to Europe in a month. Two of his
brothers were also Roman Catholic priests in China.
They are Germans, and were sent out of Germany by
Bismarck about thirty years ago, so they were all three
of them quite advanced in years.

" There seems to be quite a mixture there at the
Catholic place. The nuns are Italian and French, and
there are German, Italian, French, one English and one
American priest. I think that Andrew has told you
of the curious hospital that they have, with no doctor
and no trained nurse only the nuns, who know really
nothing about nursing." (C. M. Y.)

The relations between the Roman Catholics and
ourselves have always been very happy. The letters
sent upon the death of Jenkins and Robertson showed
real affection and respect, and that sent upon the loss
of Andrew Young was of the same nature. In his able
though partisan work on " The Catholic Church in China ",

198 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

Father Wolferstan, S.J,, whilst clinging to his general
thesis that only bewilderment and disaster can follow
from the preaching of various witnesses i.e. those not
in the fold of the Roman Catholic Church ; under which
condemnation, by the by, Greek and Anglican Episco-
palians fare no better than Presbyterians or Congre-
gationalists quotes the tributes of his own fellow
religionists who are missionaries in the interior of China.
The quotation which follows is from a testimony
written by the Shensi Fathers, and I have no doubt as
to the generous and unreserved meaning that would be
put upon such words in their hearts :

" The Bishop brought us the sad news, and the mis-
sionaries, who were assembled for the annual retreatj
were deeply affected. They felt that they had lost a
friend and benefactor, one ever ready to aid them in
times of sickness. My personal opinion is that your
English doctors are the hardest-worked people in Sianfu,
and if they succumb they are martyrs to charity. If
English heroism shows itself at the South Pole, it abounds
in the hospital in China. The Bishop commissions me
to express to you the heartfelt sympathy of the Catholic
Mission in your sad bereavement, and our trust that Dr.
Cecil Robertson is in enjoyment of the reward of a life
devoted to the service of God and the alleviation of
human suffering. ' Verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever
ye have done to one of the least of these My brethren,
ye have done it unto Me.' " (Letter from the Reverend
Father Hugh Scanlon to the author when the latter was
acting as Local Secretary to the English Baptist Mission
in Shensi, in the year 1913.)

The Swedish missionaries were scattered over a long
line of stations running to the north-west up to, and
across, the Kansuh border. They were a self-denying

THE DOCTOR, THE MISSION, AND THE WORLD 199

people, slow to encroach on a doctor's time, not calling
him in until the case was really serious. This meant,
however, that when necessity did arise they were them-
selves too ill to be moved, and also that help if given
had to be given promptly. It was in this connection
that the terrible roads and treacherous rivers of Shensi
were so apt to prove our undoing, as the following instance
will show. In August, 1906, a call for a doctor came
from a town thirty miles to the west, as difficulty had
arisen in a case of confinement. Dr. Jenkins, although
at the time too ill to ride, started off in a cart. The rain
had been pouring down for days, and the roads were
" just as bad as they could be". Fifteen miles from
Sianfu was the place where the river was usually crossed
by a raft, but the crossing was now impossible. Jenkins
sat down in his cart, sick as he was, and waited from
Friday to Monday, when, since the waters had increased
instead of abating, he returned to Sianfu.

On Thursday, the rain having ceased, Young made the
attempt. At the river, although night had fallen, the
boatmen were persuaded " after some difficulty " to
risk the crossing. Much high-pitched wrangling, weari-
some bargaining, and many frenzied gesticulations are
to be read into those two words " some difficulty ".
Once started on its course, the raft, instead of its usual
half-hour for crossing, took four hours, though the far
bank is at most only a thousand yards from the Sianfu
side. " We were carried down a long distance first, and
then stuck on a sand bank for a while." Thirty miles
from the city he rested a short while in an inn, " though
there were too many creeping things about " for him
to sleep. At first streak of dawn he went on again. It
was three in the afternoon before he reached his destina-
tion, and it was " evident that nothing could be done

200 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

to avert the fatal termination which was fast hastening
on. She lapsed into unconsciousness two hours after
I got there, and died next morning at three o'clock.
They had only been married eleven months, and she
was a particularly promising worker." To have to tell
patients or their friends that nothing could be done
for them was always a sore trial to this tender-hearted
man, and he never learned callousness nor even the
philosophy which one so desired for him as a protection
for his own nerve and heart. One of the reasons
which determined the Mission upon starting a hospital
at San Yuan, on the other side of the river, is found
in the remembrance of such experiences as that just
described.

This was the first of a long series of journeys made by
the doctors (though happily no other journey had so
tragic an ending) which made the medical auxiliary of
the Society lay down certain restrictions. As such
instances multiplied it became imperative that the
Mission should arrive at some regular policy on such
matters, and to-day it is the rule of the hospital that
in case of expected confinements arrangements must be
made to get to Sianfu in good time, since the doctor
cannot be expected to put down his ordinary work
and be for days or even weeks away from the hospital.
Even with all care to ensure that patients, Chinese or
foreign, come to the hospital and that the doctor is not ex-
pected to go to them, unforeseen casualties and crises will
arise making calls upon the doctor's humanity which it is
either impossible to refuse, or which, if refused, cause him
sore heart-burning.

The China Inland Mission stations were three to five
days' journey away, and what has been said of the
Swedish stations could be written of them, except that

THE DOCTOR, THE MISSION AND THE WORLD 201

to reach their stations the rivers to be negotiated
were, if anything, worse.

A further Mission development which greatly appealed
to the medicals began in November, 1909, when the
various Chinese professors in the Shensi University
a Government college approached us to hold a Sunday
evening service in English. Jenkins threw open his
sitting-room, all the men missionaries about the place
did what they could to make the tea reception on
foreign lines as friendly as possible, and we established
really pleasant relations with the University. We had
no great illusions as to what brought these men to us
in the first place. The shrewdness of Andrew Young
as well as his sheer good nature and his faith come out
in his comment on this effort. " The English professor
(a Chinese gentleman) asked that the class be started
in order that he and as many of the students as cared,
might attend with a view to getting to understand ' some-
thing of the Christian religion '. I suppose really what
they mainly want is to have the opportunity, which
intercourse with us will afford, of becoming familiar
with English. Whatever their object may be it was
too good an opportunity to let slip, so Mr. Keyte agreed
to take up this work. All of us male missionaries were
present. . . . Those of us who lived in the Suburb had
to leave just as the address was commencing." There was
never a mission in which the doctors did more in play-
ing the game to forward the work in all its branches. After
a week such as theirs they would give up the Sunday after-
noon to drink tea and hob-nob with students who wanted
to air their " How do you do ? " " May I ask your name ? "
English sentences. The doctors would stay until the last
possible moment in order to brighten things up, and then
hurry to reach the city gate ere it closed at dusk.

202 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

The Mohammedan quarter of Sianfu gave a special
opening to the medical men, who were in a position
different from that of the evangelistic missionary with
regard to work amongst the followers of the prophet.
After the great Mohammedan rebellion in North-west
China in the 'seventies, in which millions of lives
were lost, the Mohammedans were forced by government
decree to migrate in large numbers from Kansuh in the
extreme north-west and to settle in 'cities where there
were Manchu garrisons as, e.g., that of Sianfu which
could overawe them. Even to-day the Mohammedans,
reinforced as they are by a small but constant trickle of
immigration from the Turkestan and Russian Mohamme-
dan tribes, are still a menace to the peace of the agricul-
tural Chinese of the north-west. When, as a Christian
mission, we have attempted work amongst the Mohamme-
dan population, we have been generally asked by the
Chinese local officials, for the sake of the general peace
in the city, to go slowly, as any suspicion of propaganda
amongst Mohammedans would arouse fanatical opposi-
tion, and a riot precipitated in the city would mean
danger to foreign life, and this in the long run would
include trouble for the Chinese local officials. This does
not mean that we give up the idea of work amongst the
Mohammedans, but it does mean that it has to be set
about in a very careful way, and that the easy method
of approach open to us in the case of our ordinary work
in China will not do in the case of Islam. But the door
which was closed to us was open to the medicals, and
it was a matter for prayer and thankfulness that the
two doctors Jenkins and Young who thus had access
to what was a fifth of the city's population, were men
so keen and so qualified, not only as medicals but as
evangelists. ** We do not forget," said Young quaintly

THE DOCTOR, THE MISSION AND THE WORLD 203

in this connection, " to mix all the treatment, whether
medical or surgical, with prayer."

Of Andrew Young's interest in the great church
assemblies we shall see more later, 1 and as he grew to
understand more of the language he looked forward
eagerly to these gatherings. Some idea of the strength
and long standing of the Chinese Christian Church in
Shensi in 1906 is shown by Young's remarks about the
coming June Conference. " About seventy-six learners
are to be recognized by baptism as members of the
Church. There were more than twice that number
applying, but the rest were not accepted. They need
to be kept some little time longer under instruction.
The church is also about to choose another pastor in
addition to the two whom they already support. The
church being scattered over such a wide area, and the
means of communication being slow, pastoring a member-
ship of 800 means a good deal of work."

But it was in the spiritual revival of 1909 which pro-
duced such blessing in Shensi that he found his greatest
joy during those years. Through the hospital's close
connection with the Swedish friends he followed eagerly
and in detail the story of the movement amongst the
churches connected with their Mission, and looked
forward in March to special meetings in the East Suburb
to be led by Mr. Lutley, superintendent in Shansi of the
China Inland Mission, and Mr. Wang, his Chinese co-
worker. Both evangelists had met with a signal response
to their messages further west. Young writes, " We are
having prayer meetings every night in anticipation of
these gatherings, and hope and trust that much blessing
will be the result." From the Youngs' letters one pieces
together a few impressions of that wonderful time.
1 See p. 309, also Chapter XIV.

204 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

Whilst the spring was at its best and the lovely oil-plant
flower made the air fragrant, and all nature was expectant
of harvest, the two evangelists came. Those days which
were so blessed were sufficiently strenuous. Sectional
prayer meetings were held at 6 a.m. The first general
meeting conducted by Mr. Wang began at seven and
lasted until ten. After an interval for food, Mr. Lutley
opened the second meeting at eleven, and it lasted until
three in the afternoon. The third meeting, which Mr.
Lutley also conducted, began at four and went on until
seven, sometimes eight, in the evening. Between the
meetings and until late at night there would be quiet
little groups meeting here and there for prayer and
thanksgiving. There were two outstanding features of
these meetings. The first was that though there would
be sometimes quite a hundred people praying audibly,
each in his or her own words as the Spirit moved them,
there was no sense of confusion, much less of irreverence
or disorder. Where one person prayed aloud there might
be five or six about him quietly praying their own peti-
tions, or they might follow his petition, adding their
own " Amen ". The second feature was that of public
confession. For many present the conviction of sin
seemed to be so vivid and oppressive that nothing could
remove it but public confession, and an avowal of penitence,
with requests for the church's prayer that forgiveness
might be granted. When, as happened in some cases,
these confessions came from proud, reserved, Confucianist
scholars who made their avowal before a mixed crowd
which included labourers and schoolgirls, they were very
distressing for a sensitive person to hear. From coarser
natures, broken down by the same conviction, the dis-
closures were at times dreadful, and necessitated on the
part of the leader real wisdom, and the power of quick

THE DOCTOR, THE MISSION AND THE WORLD 205

decision to prevent the spiritual value of the meetings
being lost. Like all genuine religious movements this
one soon brought about spurious imitations. One found
tiny schoolgirls imagining that confession was the one
way "to be good". At one time there was a danger
that the church would look upon this public confession
as a new ritual, an essential feature of worship. But
the reality of those first great convulsions amongst
strong natures was unmistakable, whilst the ethical
residuum of this great religious movement was a perma-
nent asset to the church. To Andrew Young the doctor
in China, as to Andrew Young the preacher in the Congo,
commencing and closing his every day with the prayer
that God would save souls through their faith in Jesus
Christ, those days were indeed as the gate of heaven.

It was in the year 1908 that the Youngs had been
able to go to Ruling for language study. 1 At Ruling the
life was all good. They had time to study, they met
with friends, they stored up health and strength. On
the journey they had stopped for a few days at Cheng-
chow with the Herrings, of the American Baptist Mission,
and Mrs. Young wrote, " I enjoyed hearing American
voices and getting into American houses for a few days,
as I am the sole and only American in that great province
of Shensi ! Still, I can manage very well with a settle-
ment of British." As Mr. Watson and his bride came up
to Ruling for their honeymoon there was enough of
Shensi to give the pleasure of " do you remember . . . ? "
without the unpleasantness of odours and dust and noise
that Shensi knew so well how to supply.

In September Young sat for his second examination,
1 See Chapter V., p. 134.

206 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

and they went off light-heartedly to the American
Presbyterian Mission in Hwai Yuen, in Anhwei province.
This particular station is almost unique in that it is
supported entirely evangelistic, educational and medical
work all being included by one church the Central
Presbyterian Church of New York. The Misses Murdoch
had been sent there ; Agnes as doctor, Margaret as nurse,
and Mary as " an ordinary missionary ".. Mrs. Young's
arrival meant that four missionary sisters were together
at one station in China, women whose father had as a
young man offered to come to China, but had not been
able to do so, as the Missionary Society at that date did
not consider medical mission work necessary in China.

The introduction to the work at another large station
and under so old and well-equipped a missionary society
as the A.P.M. was all education to the two visitors
from Sianfu. But by November Young began to realize
that he was something of a rolling stone and that the
journeying of Congo days was being repeated in China.
" Wandering is all right up to a certain point " this
is a propos of his brother John, who is running around
on business a good deal at home, and staying in big
hotels "but after that it gets rather wearisome. I
was just thinking what a wandering time I have had
since coming to China, not that it has been or is at all
wearisome, because it has been full of interest. By the
time we get back to Sianfu I shall have travelled about
seven thousand miles. We have seen a great variety of
work which will, I have no doubt, all be of use to us
in days to come." In this connection one thinks
sympathetically of missionaries in Shantung who have,
many of them, been there for twenty or more years and
yet have had so little/opportunity of gaining a knowledge
of China apart from that supplied by their own district.

THE DOCTOR, THE MISSION AND THE WORLD 207

Being near the coast, entrance to or exit from their own
field has not necessitated wide travel. Thus the oppor-
tunity which they would so welcome and appreciate of
a more extended acquaintance with Chinese conditions
has been denied them. I remember well the delight
shewn by one of the finest of the Shantung workers, who
had been there thirty years, when at last he made the
journey to mid-China and from there west to Szechuan.
I remember, too, how keenly he felt that he had missed
so much during his thirty Chinese years. The Shensi
Mission is difficult to reach, it is true, but its members do
see something of the country as a whole.

It was whilst Young was in Huai Yuan that the death
of the Emperor and the " Old Buddha " as the people
called the celebrated Empress-dowager, Tzu-Hsi made
a deep impression which was felt all over the country.
In Anhwei province never too peaceful the people
soon felt the effects of weakened authority. "There
seems to be the fear that the revolutionary leaders, who
aim at overthrowing the present Manchu dynasty, may
try to raise a disturbance. There does not seem to be
much fear, however, if the army remains loyal." We
know now that the Manchus could not resist selling
numerous posts in the army, and that as they sold the
revolutionaries bought, so that the army itself was given
an anti-dynastic bias. For a fortnight things looked
very ugly, and one felt that at any moment there might
be mutiny, with the accompanying loosening of order
and pillaging by bad characters. Young's comment is
interesting in view of what he was to go through in
1911, when the revolution actually came. " It is reas-
suring to reflect that the King of kings has full control
and will keep things well in hand, guiding them as shall
seem best to Him."

208 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

This was not the first time that Young had written
about the unrest in the country and the activities of the
" Young China " party. In January, 1907, a rumbling
was heard of the storm which blazed out later in the
revolution of 1911. " Things are in a rather troubled
condition in the east of the province, where the people
have risen and caused disturbance from the introduction
of the new school system and the proposed railway in
Shensi. They have destroyed several of the Government
schools." The new reforms which the Empress-dowager
started, when the Boxer defeat and the 1900 debacle
had shown her that the house must be set in order, were
by no means easy to carry through. The Manchu
Government had sins enough to answer for, but they
probably were endeavouring in 1907 to advance the new
educational system. In their railway extension scheme
they were struggling against a profound suspicion
generated in the minds of the people that the Government
was " selling the country to the foreigner," a suspicion
due rather to misdeeds in the past than to any mal-
practice in 1907. By the 25th of January Young wrote
that the " taxes for the construction of the railway, which
were causing so much discontent, have been remitted,"
which may mean that some of the men high up had
for the time being been frightened from illegitimate
gains, or it may mean that a necessary piece of public
effort had been blocked through the fear of arousing
ignorant prejudice to the point of rebellion. The diffi-
culty in China is that the people never can be sure that
money collected for so-called public purposes is used
legitimately and not misappropriated by officials. This
is the real reason why so little public spirit or altruism
is shown by the Chinese in times of famine, or of a breach
in the Yellow River dyke, or other disaster which makes

THE DOCTOR, THE MISSION, AND THE WORLD 209

a call upon united effort for relief work which in America
or Britain would be subscribed to lavishly. The men
who could give would do so if they knew that the effort
was to have honest supervision e.g. the Chinese in
Singapore are generous enough in subscribing to public
efforts but the way to such honest supervision has not
yet been found.

The Youngs returned to Sianfu in February, 1909, and
were glad to be in direct touch with their work once
more. It had been good to have some contact with the
outside world, but it was very good to be home again.
The outside world, however, was not beyond coming to
them. All sorts and conditions of visitors wandered into
Sianfu, and as a rule needed to visit the hospital, in
some cases giving broad hints that during their stay they
preferred the doctor's house to the Chinese inn as a resi-
dence. These latter were of the crank variety. And what
a variety it was ! A group which set out to cross China
on foot without any cash, relying upon the sale of picture
post-cards, was about the maddest that I recollect. There
were others who said that they trusted to the Lord to
provide for them, but who did their best to help out
such provision by inflicting themselves upon long-suffering
missionaries en route. Then there were visitors whose one
idea was that the missionary should promptly drop all
other work in order to answer long lists of questions fired
at him. For many of the " questionnaires " which are
sent to him through the post the sensible missionary
keeps a large waste-paper basket into which he shoots a
goodly proportion of these products of restless curiosity.
But when the enquirer comes up in person to collect
statistics, or to obtain " local colour ", or " the sort of
story that will go down well with the general public, don't
you know," he or she for they are of both sexes can

210 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

scarcely be shot into such a convenient limbo ; one has
to endure them gladly or with as little irritation as
possible.

But whilst such were the trials, there were compensa-
tions which more than made up for them. There were
visitors who brought a breath of new life from the outer
world, men to whom it was a privilege to listen, though
being busy and thoughtful themselves, they were careful
not to waste the time of others. One remembers in
particular Dr. Morrison, of The Times, because he was
a distant connection (by marriage) of Mrs. Andrew
Young. On one trip he made he was on the scent of
pan-Islamic agents sent to create disturbances amongst
the Mohammedans of Shensi, Kansuh, and the north-
west generally. It was not until I went in his company
to the mosques and about the city generally nominally
as guide and interpreter that I realized how little I
knew of the city compared with a man of Dr. Morrison's
calibre, who was visiting Sianfu then for the first time.
Another visitor from whom one could always gain a
truer understanding of China was Sir Alexander Hosie,
whose books on the country are a mine of trustworthy
information and sound erudition. He was on the track
of the opium poppy. A group of geologists under the
leadership of Professor Lauderback, of California Univer-
sity, were in the province for months, with quarters in
Sianfu, and naturally they gravitated to the hospital.
The Sowerby-Clarke expedition brought another interest-
ing group. Stray botanists, archaeologists, hunters,
men with mental resources of their own which prevented
them being an infliction upon others, came through the
city. Best of all, perhaps, were the regular travellers ;
the missionaries from the Tibetan border or the Kansuh
stations, and the men in the postal service making for

THE DOCTOR, THE MISSION AND THE WORLD 211

their work farther up country. With these one was sure
to have a list of common acquaintances, and it would be,
" Where are the Smiths now ? " and " Is Jones still up
in Lanchow ? " etc. ; real honest gossip that made one
realize oneself afresh as a part of a living, growing,
throbbing society.

But when such a visitor was a medical and a missionary
and a Scot, then there was rejoicing indeed in the quarters
of Dr. and Mrs. Andrew Young.

Travellers came not only from the eastern coast. From
the western mountains on the Tibetan border there came
occasional and wonderful visitors to the city. In these
men Young also took interest and described them at
length.

It was in February, 1908, that the Dalai Lama came
amidst much excitement to Sianfu, after a year spent in
travelling from Lhasa. After the Younghusband expedi-
tion he had left the Tibetan capital for Peking, in order
to see his suzerain, the Chinese Emperor. From Peking
came a wire that he was to be received with all the
honours due to the Emperor himself. As this visit was
too good an opportunity to be missed, the missionaries
went with Bibles and other presents to see his holiness.
The Dalai Lama and his whole suite lived under canvas in
the open drill ground which still recalls the days when
Chinese Emperors held their Court in Sianfu. The
missionaries were entertained in a guest-tent whilst their
cards were sent in. Presently a message was brought
back to the effect that " after the Younghusband expedi-
tion the Dalai Lama ' had no face ' to see Englishmen ".
When his holiness left Sianfu for Peking the police
arrangements were very rigid, and the rows of kneeling
people on the streets none save the police were allowed
to stand made it clear that the Government orders a.s

212 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

to high honours were being taken seriously. He looked
a very mild young man, though tall and weedy. For-
tunately he had a long stop just outside the entrance to
the Mission lane, so we saw him at leisure, not kneeling,
but keeping ourselves unobtrusively out of the sight of
those who did.

Another visitor from Central Asia who when in Sianfu
found his way to the hospital, was an emissary from
Nepal, carrying tribute presents to the Emperor in
Peking. As he and his train had been several months
on the road, travelling through India, Burmah and
Szechuan, they were thankful " to put in for repairs "
especially as they were suffering from eye trouble. As
an eye specialist Young was able to render them good
service.

And so the years passed until, with reinforcements in
sight, the Youngs' removal to San Yuan became possible.

CHAPTER IX

Reinforcements and Removals

THIS chapter is more or less in the nature of a diary to
show rapidly the sequence of events which led up to
the close of Andrew Young's service in the days of the
Chinese Empire and brought him his dramatic years under
the Republic.

After his marriage and until February, 1908, his
home was in the East Suburb of Sianfu, and he went
into the city daily to the hospital for his work. In the
spring of 1908 they moved into the city and took up
residence at the hospital itself. At Christmas, 1909,
there arrived the third great figure in the Shensi medical
story, Dr. Cecil F. Robertson 1 , who, upon the completion
of his first year's language work, was to release Young
entirely for the San Yuan scheme. In the summer of
1910 Mrs. Young's three sisters, the Misses Murdoch
doctor, nurse, and evangelist arrived for a visit. Rus-
sell Murdoch Young was born in the August. With one
aunt to doctor him and a second to nurse him and a
third to act as devotee, he had a good arrival. He really
was a lovely boy and worth making much of. The letters
home were naturally full of him and just as full of simple
unaffected thankfulness to God for the mercies thus
vouchsafed.

1 See " Life of C. F. Robertson," by F. B, Meyer.

213

214 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

By November, 1910, the sisters had departed and
the Youngs moved across the river to San Yuan,
where they lived in the Zenana house whilst their own
was being built. Medical work poured in upon them,
since the title of " tai-fu " (doctor) brought patients from
all quarters, but nothing save out-patient work was
contemplated, since Andrew was back at his old Congo
task of building a home ; and this time it was no iron
shack, nor even such a house as the Matadi one, but a
hospital and residence. Cases that needed surgical
attention were sent to Sianfu, as instance the little girl
with gangrened feet. 2 But no sooner was the roof on
the first block of buildings than certain pitiful cases were
lying in the bare rooms, cases which the amateur builder
looked after as best he could. A young architect, Mr.
H. H. Stanley, had come out at Christmas, 1909, but he
could only draw the plan for the San Yuan buildings,
being kept busy in the city building a church and preaching
hall. I think he only made the twenty-seven miles
separating the two places once before the San Yuan
roofs were in place. Mr. Watson, who had practical
knowledge, would have been invaluable, but he was
up in the far-off Suiteh. Mr. Shields, who had been
two years in the country and had had experience of build-
ing in Scotland, came up to San Yuan later. But by
that time the task of arranging contracts and deter-
mining the lines of work had been completed, though for
the doctor-builder it was a relief to know there was some-
one on the ground who could follow the devious wiles and
track down the misdemeanours of the Shensi contractors.

No foreign buildings had been erected in the province
previously with the exception of the Roman Catholic
cathedral and the Roman Catholic church in Sianfu, so

2 See Chapter VII.

REINFORCEMENTS AND REMOVALS 215

that everything had to be done with raw workers who
had no experience in adapting their Chinese building
methods to foreign requirements.

One pretty picture flashed across this period. On
Saturday afternoons the Youngs tried to forget buildings
and beggars and business generally, and went off for
two or three hours into the country. A chair or a cart
took the mother and the baby, whilst Andrew rode his
horse, and for a little time they were neither " medical "
nor " missionary ", but simply " family " ; and they
all especially the baby had a really good time. And
so we come to the summer of 1911.

The Arthington scheme meanwhile had scattered the
previous Sianfu group. Mr. and Mrs. Watson (the latter
the Miss Russell who appeared as a Zenana worker in
the itch-curing struggle of chapter eight) had been sent
to Suiteh (sometimes referred to as Suitehchou) fourteen
days' journey to the north, to open up work, whilst Mr.
and Mrs. Borst-Smith had gone to Yenanfu, ten days'
north. The whole line was connected by a chain of
out-stations, which were supervised at their southern end
by missionaries in San Yuan for three days north of
that city, and from that point by Mr. Borst-Smith until
he touched Mr. Watson's district. At one or other of
these two northern stations medical work was to be
opened, and the, Youngs arranged to be in Suiteh in
September of 1911, and to make a stay there and at
Yenanfu, whilst Mr. Shields went on with the San Yuan
building. To go up the long, narrow, shut-in defile from
San Yuan to Suiteh in the blazing August heat would
be very trying for the mother and child, so they planned
to go in the summer for a short visit to Kuling, and from

216 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

there by steamer and train to Tai Yuan, the capital of
Shansi. From Tai Yuan they could go over the glorious
hills of Shansi and North Shensi to Suiteh, thus avoiding
the heat. It was on this particular journey to Ruling
that they had their worst experience of those dangers of
the Chinese roads which arise from purely natural causes.
The story is given in Mrs. Young's own words, helped
by two short extracts from Dr. Young's letters. " Miss
Thomas 1 had not been at all well, and she was ordered
to Ruling for the summer and was to go with us. We
had three carts. We had to take our winter things as
well as foreign clothes for the summer, because we did
not know how long we would have to stay in the north,
which meant more luggage than we would otherwise have
had. Miss Thomas had Wang-si with her. He had only
recently come to the province. He was an elderly
Christian man, very quiet and respectable, and had been
Miss Sifton's cook. He had also been a cook for the ladies
in the city, and it was thought that he would be a very
good one for Miss Thomas to have with her, as she would
have to make the journey back alone. We had our own
cook with us and the two rode on the third cart. We
got the animals in the north, and our two mules were
particularly fine ones, and we had an unusually good
carter. The day we got into Tungkwan 2 we had started
very early in the morning, so we got the axles changed 3

1 A member of the Women's auxiliary, which was generally referred
to in those days as " The Zenana Mission."

2 Tungkwan is the fortress guarding the long pasa which connects
the Honan province with that of Shensi.

3 The axles of all carts in a particular province are of one width.
Where roads are primitive the advantage of a cart's wheels being
able to follow in the ruts made by its predecessors is obvious. But
the axle width of Honan province differs from that used in Shensi.
Hence, upon reaching the border there may be two or three hours
delay whilst the cart's axle is changed.

REINFORCEMENTS AND REMOVALS 217

and our dinner, and were away again soon after ten
o'clock. The wind had been blowing a great deal and
it began to rain a little. Our cart was in front and the
other two were close behind. We went on to Wentichen
and then started up the hill. By this time it was raining
heavily. As we went up, we met quite a number of
carts going down, but our cart always happened to meet
them where there was room to pass, 1 so we got to the
top without any difficulty and then started down. If
you remember, that ' ko ' (defile) is not very steep,
which Dr. Young says was the reason for what happened,
because in the steep ' ko ' the rain runs away rapidly,
but here it couldn't, and became a deep stream in the
roads. The carts which we had passed in the wide
parts met our other two in the narrow part and there
they all stuck. The water was rising rapidly, and the
men driving these two delayed carts of ours finally decided
to turn round and go back. They did succeed in turning,
but then almost immediately carts and mules and all
were swept down by the torrent. Miss Thomas's cart
started to overturn, and her carter jumped to the side.
She tried too, but jumped short and fell into the flood.
She was carried rapidly down. She caught at a rope
hanging from a cart, but the rush of water was so strong
that she was dragged down under the cart among the
wheels, and almost lost consciousness. Ultimately she
came to the surface and was carried down the stream.
She was able to keep herself up by lying back and float-
ing swimming was impossible owing to the strength of
the current. She was carried down over a mile to the
village at the bottom of the hill, where the road widened
out and the water got shallower, when she was helped out

1 In these defiles there is not room for two carts abreast, but " bays "
are scooped out at intervals where two may pass.

218 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

by a man standing by. The man who drove her cart
was also carried down, and came ashore about the same
place. An old innkeeper took pity on her, and took her
into his inn and gave her some of his own clothes. She
thought that she was quite alone and that all the rest of
us had been drowned. After her jump, Wang-si jumped.
He missed the side also, and was drowned. Our cook
managed to catch hold of something, and was saved.
A little later he went on down into the village and found
Miss Thomas, but they had no idea what had become
of us.

" We in the first cart had just gone on peacefully,
quite unaware of anything that had happened behind us,
as the rain was so heavy and we could only see dim
shadows, though I was certain I could see our own carts
behind us. After we got down the hill we reached the
stream, which is generally easily forded by the traveller
who is making for the village of P'an T'o on the
opposite hill. This stream was now so swollen as
to be almost unfordable, and the bank on the other
side had broken so that our mules had to go up a
sheer rise of about six feet, pulling the cart after
them. We got into P'an T'o just before dark, soaking
wet and expecting the others to come in just behind us ;
but they did not, and then Dr. Young heard on the
street that some accident had happened. Someone was
drowned behind us, they were saying. Then he decided
to go back to see what had happened. Just before he
started, a note was handed in from our cook saying that
he did not know where Miss Thomas was, but that
Wang-si had ascended to Heaven.

" Andrew got two men to go with him with lanterns,
as the road we had come by was quite impassable, and
he would have to walk a long way around through

REINFORCEMENTS AND REMOVALS 219

the country. He reached Miss Thomas about midnight.
She had thought that we were all dead. I waited up a
good part of the night, because I expected that they
might be in at any minute. I had told the innkeeper to
have plenty of hot water ready, and I heard his bellows
going at intervals all night. The next morning about
six o'clock I had a note saying that Miss Thomas was
safe, and about eleven o'clock they came in. She was
still wearing the innkeeper's clothes, and on the journey
was carried sitting on a stool in the middle of a table
which had been turned upside down so as to form a sedan
chair. We had to stay at P'an T'o for two or three days.
Miss Thomas was so shaken that she could not travel
at first, and we had to make arrangements for burying
Wang-si. We bought a coffin and the necessary clothes.
The coffin was bricked up in a temporary grave until
Wang-si's relatives, to whom we had meantime sent
word, should come to move the coffin to his own province
he was a Shantung man and to the family graveyard.
All the rest of the journey we had to have an extra cart
to take Miss Thomas's carter, as he was very much
injured. One of his mules had also been drowned. When
we got into the inns the carters used to show off Russell
and say that the gods must have something in store for
a baby who had come safely through such an experience."
It was whilst travelling by train that summer that
they found themselves in company with Mr. Hoste, the
Director of the China Inland Mission and brother of the
man with whom Andrew had worked so long and so
intimately in Congo. Whilst at Ruling, Young was ill,
and he himself diagnosed the trouble as appendicitis, but
said nothing of it to others. At Tai Yuan he had a
further attack, and got away as soon as he could lest
his medical colleagues there should detain him for an

220 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

operation and so imperil the help he was due to give
in Suiteh, where they were needed for a confinement
case. No other doctor was available, nor could a nurse
have been obtained if Mrs. Young had not been willing
to act. Unless this fact is borne in mind it is difficult
to understand why they were found wandering amongst
these northern mountains so far from their own station.

Before reaching Tai Yuan they had the opportunity of
at last seeing Shou Yang, delightfully situated in the
high Shansi hills, nearly four thousand feet above the
sea, the station for which Andrew had left England six
years previously, the country town where he could have
built and worked a small hospital. Here they spent a
very happy week-end with the Harlows.

From Tai Yuan to Suiteh in the autumn of the year
is one of the most lovely trips one could wish to make.
When the country is at peace and the keeper of the rough
but friendly inn meets you at the close of the day, or
at certain happy spots a kind head priest puts his
guest quarters at your disposal ; when the air is like
wine, and the eagles circle above whilst the deer are
seen running on the hill-side not too far from the track,
and partridges go cluck-clucking impudently across the
path ; whilst around you on every hand the rolling hills
spread out for league after league, rising here and there
to majestic peaks ; then the Tai Yuan Suiteh road
makes the heart sing. That is how the road strikes a
bachelor doing the trip on horseback. A mother im-
prisoned within a Chinese mule-litter on account of her
babe finds it otherwise, as shows the following comment
by Mrs. Young, hardened campaigner though she is :
" If you could have seen me one afternoon actually in
tears from sheer terror at the road the precipices and
the stone staircases and the mules T'ai Yuan animals

REINFORCEMENTS AND REMOVALS 221

who had never been in the mountains before and were
as terrified as I was you would not have said that the
road was a delight. We were in litters, and sometimes
they were crosswise over the animal's backs each going
in an opposite direction at a turn over a precipice !
Riding perhaps may be pleasant, but I could only walk
short distances, as Russell was too heavy to carry."

However, the babe, who by this time was becoming a
small boy, enjoyed it all. It need scarcely be added that
he was " as good as gold "..

Suiteh is one of those compact, self-supporting hill
towns that have an individuality of their own. They are
no mere places on the road ; they are the reason for the
road. The traveller from Milan to Venice may feel that
Brescia and other towns are all " towns on the road ",
but he has a different feeling and knows that he has
reached a different world when he enters Verona, with
its frowning bastions, its wonderful circus, its square of
the Signori and its ladder of the Scaliger family stamped
everywhere. Here is a city which commands the road ;
it is no mere servant of the road's purpose. And Suiteh
is the Verona of North Shensi. Its high solid walls
crown a long, tortuous ascent, walls from which the
gleaming torches are lowered in time of strife. From
its frowning battlemented gateways severed heads hang
as warnings to prowling banditti that Suiteh has sharp
teeth with which to defend herself. On a peaceful sunny
day in early September, 1911, the city was free from
any such horrors : it had the friendly face which an old
battle-scarred castle perched on the Rhine heights can
show, or such as gladdens the man who after a long
spell of Egyptian sands, glimpses the green heights of
Avignon and their crowning castle from the Rhone
valley. What impressed the Youngs upon their first

222 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

sight of Suiteh, and what one hears repeatedly from
those who visit it, was the sense that here is a city well
worth living in and living for. Here is a place where
an influence once exerted will be conserved. Good
effected here will work its way through a well articulated
city life with a genuine civic association of its own.
Here is a city set on a hill, giving guidance and direction
to the world around it. Here is a real centre of power.
On reaching Suiteh one wonders no longer that, in spite
of the drawbacks arising from its long distance from
Sianfu, Bell and Watson, with imaginations fired by the
city's possibilities, put in a report that the Mission ought
to occupy the city. 1 Whether by this Missionary Society
or that, Suiteh was a city that ought to be won for the
Christian cause. To pass it by for cities on the road
would show a lack not only of enterprise but of proportion.

For hospital work it would have been ideal, and Young
writes frankly, " There is certainly a splendid field here
for Medical Mission work. I almost wish we had not
started in San Yuan. Indeed, I always maintained that
these northern places had a prior claim, seeing that the
Sianfu hospital is within a day's journey (of San Yuan),
whereas here it is thirteen days. Many lives might be
saved, not to speak of getting access to many more people
with the Gospel." Meanwhile his skill met with a pathetic
welcome from the sick and needy in the city. They
arrived on the tenth of September and left on the eleventh
of October. Mr. Watson had fitted up a rough dis-
pensary for them, and there they put in a busy month's
work.

In reckoning up the restraining causes which, a month
later, prevented certain sinister forces in the city from
destroying the lives and property within the little Mission

1 See Chapter VIII.

REINFORCEMENTS AND REMOVALS 223

at Suiteh, factors to be remembered are the medical
work done and the impression created during the Youngs'
visit.

From Suiteh they came south to Yenanfu, where Mr.
and Mrs. Borst-Smith had been at work 1 since 1908.
Here they were detained longer than they had anticipated,
owing to another attack of appendicitis. Sunday, the
twenty-second of October, was the day of the eclipse.
A day or two later they set out for the south and San
Yuan, where they hoped to find a hospital rapidly
approaching completion and where the townsfolk would
be quietly interested in the daily occurrences of any
normal inland city in the Empire of China.

And meanwhile the Empire had disappeared. Though
the Manchu dynasty was not formally ended until the
spring of 1912, yet from the hour when Szechuan, Hupeh,
Shensi and other provinces rose in revolt there was
never a doubt that whatever might be the future form
of the Government autocracy, constitutional monarchy
or democracy the day of the Manchu had passed. Ten
days south, in Sianfu, that fact had been announced in
blood and fire. Eight thousand victims had perished
by massacre or suicide, and the banners of the Republic
floated everywhere. But up here in these northern hills
all this was hidden, and Andrew Young with wife and
child and two servants set out in happy ignorance for
the most terrible adventure of all his adventurous life.

1 See " Mandarin and Missionary in Cathay," by E. F. Borst-Smith.

PART III
IN CHINA'S REPUBLIC

CHAPTER X
The Dramatic Year

(1) Hunted on the Hills

THE Chinese Revolution is generally dated from Septem-
ber, 1911, when the outbreak occurred in Hankow
which placed General Li Yuan-hung, the present 1 legal
President of the Chinese Republic, in charge of the
insurrectionary forces which were in Wuchang, the
capital of Hupeh province, and of those in and around
Hankow and Hanyang, on the opposite side of the River
Yang-tze-kiang. The Revolution was the visible expres-
sion of an age-long revolt against the Manchu rule in
China. The humiliation of the country at the hands,
first, of Japan in 1894, and, later, of the Powers in 1900,
had made it clear to the Chinese generally that the
Manchu machine of government had run down. In
place, therefore, of the old stage conspiracies of the White
Lily and the Elder Brethren and other secret societies, a
general movement spread amongst practical persons.
These feared that the disintegration of the country
was inevitable unless control was removed from the
Manchus, whose corruptness the " practical " person
might have ignored, but at whose feebleness he dared
no longer wink. This movement amongst the educated

1 May, 1923.
227

228 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

class gradually crystallized into the organization known
as the Ke Ming Tang "The Dynasty SeveranceLeague." 1

The propaganda of the movement aimed at being wide-
spread, but unfortunately in practice confined itself to
the high schools and colleges of the country, whilst the
military training schools, in particular, became hot-beds
of disaffection. It was largely financed by the overseas
Chinese and the wealthy merchant class in Hong Kong,
and such Treaty ports as Shanghai and Tientsin. It
cannot be said to have represented the country as a
whole. In itself this would not be sufficient to discredit
the movement, since the country, as a whole, had no
political sense, but the movement certainly erred in
attempting to work almost solely through the schools
and through the army. It made the student class self-
conscious, it deliberately inflated their self-importance,
and it assigned to mere boys, unaccustomed to self-
discipline and with no experience of life, posts of command
that could only satisfactorily be held by men who had
learned both to obey and to suffer. Mazzini's trust in
Italian youth was a trust in those who had known the
suffering of subjection to a foreign tyrant ; but the
Manchu was only theoretically a foreigner in China, and
the Chinese, qua Chinese, had no sufferings to endure.

But it was in their reckless recruiting for their army
that the Republicans brought sorrow to their country.
No tu quoque argument here will absolve them. Yuan
Shih-k'ai, or another, may have shown them the way
to expend vast sums in order to create a new soldier
class, but if the Republicans could have had more faith
in their cause they could have evolved a free but well
governed China, with the civil power still in control,

1 In this present volume " the Republican party " refers to the
Ke Ming Tang and its various political auxiliaries.

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 229

simply by speeding up the reforms which the Manchu
Dynasty had been forced to set in motion. They
attempted the short cut; they took the sword and
they are now in danger of perishing by the sword.

The anarchy resulting from reckless recruiting was no-
where more apparent than in Shensi, where the Republican
leaders, having secured the arsenal, armed the mob, only
to find that by so doing they had given to the Elder
Brethren Secret Society with its following of illiterate
bandits the opportunity it required to challenge the
leadership of the Republicans and to plunge the province
into all the misery of civil war. This division between
the forces which usurped the old Manchu control should
be remembered in the two following chapters. On the
one hand was the Ke Ming Tang under Chang Feng-hui,
who became the Governor of the province, and Chang
Pei-ying (similar in surname but no relative of the
Governor), the first general of the field forces ; on the
other hand, the undisciplined horde of the Ko Lao Hui
under yet another Chang, Chang Yun-san, who was at
the time of the outbreak a trumpeter in the army, a
man who could barely read and write, but of a ferocious
personal courage which went far iri armies more apt at
gesture than real fighting. When the Imperial armies
under Yuan Shih-k'ai closed in upon them from the east,
and the Mohammedan armies, who, for their own pur-
poses posed as loyalists, did likewise from the west,
these two parties, the Ke Ming Tang and the Ko Lao Hui,
maintained an uneasy truce for self-preservation purposes,
but it was never more than a truce. That these two
factions did not by open fighting inflict further misery
upon the province, was due to some extent to the
influence exercised by three members of the Baptist
Mission; the Rev. A. G. Shorrock, who was in those

230 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

days, in very deed, a father of the city, and its two
surgeons, Andrew Young and Cecil Robertson.

This much knowledge of the general situation is
necessary iii order to understand what follows. It is
the merest outline, as this volume does not attempt any
sketch of the revolution or of Chinese politics. 1

The facts immediately affecting the situation when
the Youngs left Yenanfu were, that the revolution had
broken out in Sianfu on the 22nd of October, that eight
thousand Manchus had been killed, whilst rioting had
been rife throughout the city. The banks and pawn-
shops had been looted, and pillage was general. Outside
the South Suburb the Swedish Mission compound had
been destroyed and eight of its inmates brutally mur-
dered, whilst in the East and West Suburbs, and in the
city itself, foreigners had for some hours been in instant
peril of their lives. Even after the first whirlwind had
passed they were still in grave danger, since an idea was
abroad in the mind of the populace that, like the Boxer
Movement of 1900, this new movement was a " kill the
foreigner " uprising.

Four days' journey from Yenanfu lies the beautiful
little town of Chungpu, situated on a hill-side rising sheer
from the river, which is a tributary of the Wei. On the
quiet evening of a lovely November day, when the colours
of the persimmon trees still made gorgeous the Shensi
passes, the little party of travellers came to an inn facing
the tiny barracks of the suburb. They felt that they
were getting home again, since Chungpu is one of the
northern out-stations of the San Yuan Mission.

1 Any readers who may wish to pursue the subject will find a
bibliography added at the close of this volume,

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 231

It was here that their ignorance of the general situation
was dispelled when the mission evangelist, coming from
the preaching hall within the town walls, told them that
there was news of trouble in Sianfu, though the details
were vague and often conflicting. That ghastly Sunday
with its thousands slain in the city streets was a story
the details of which were mercifully hidden from them
for many days to come. China is a land of rumour :
he who changes his plans with each fresh alarm will
wander in a wilderness of thwarted purposes where no
sure path is. Our particular group had no thought of
being diverted unnecessarily from their route, though
the doctor went over to the office of the local magistrate
to glean such particulars as might have come through.

The magistrate himself knew little, but a military official
whom he met there, and who was hurrying to his post
at Peitungkuan, two days farther south, offered him
escort to that town. The offer was accepted and next
day saw them arrive at Ichun. They found room at
an inn, the usual bustle of arrival was proceeding, and
Andrew with the muleteers had the full attention of the
usual group of inn loiterers and hangers-on. No one
had eyes for the furtive figure of a Chinese schoolboy
slipping in to the darkened room where Mrs. Young
busied herself with a baby's travelling kit. A letter
passed into her hands, there was a hurried glance of
recognition, a sign for caution and silence, and the
figure merged again in the loitering crowd, slipped through
it and was gone. He was only an ordinary schoolboy,
a pupil of the Mission in the East Suburb of Sianfu, yet
he had made his way successfully for five days through a
district rife with rumours and already infested with
robbers, and had borne a foreigner's warning letter, a
document which if found upon him by zealous " patriots "

232 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

patrolling the road, might have cost him his life. The
writer, Mr. Shorrock, had himself been away from Sianfu
at the time of the outbreak, and knew only that grave
danger threatened. He feared that some members of
the Mission had been killed, and advised the Youngs,
whom he had hoped to warn while they were still in
Yenanfu, to stay quietly with the Borst-Smiths in that
prefectural city rather than risk the disorders of the small
towns and the open road.

If the whole country to the south was in revolt, it
was doubtful how much protection their Chungpu military
friend could afford them quite possibly he would need
to look to himself so they decided to attempt the
journey back to Yenanfu. But a traveller's desire does
not necessarily coincide with a muleteer's humour. The
animals had been hired to go to San Yuan. The mule-
teers had their own programme to consider, and San
Yuan had been a fixed point therein. It meant a long,
weary wrangle, and all the ingenious delays which a
sulky Chinese muleteer can so well contrive, before, late
the next morning, they got the animals' heads turned
northwards once more. Only one reason could, in the
muleteer's minds, account for the perversity of the
foreigners : their boxes must be full of silver. Why
should honest Chinese muleteers have their life made a
burden for the vagaries of such people ? To the tune
of such a refrain, monotonously chanted by the man
at the front to his fellows in the rear, the little procession
made its way back to Chungpu. Here they met more
schoolboys who had returned from Sianfu to their homes,
and these had more definite news. What was going on
within the walls of the city they could only guess, but
it was actual knowledge that the Sianfu gates had been
closed since noon on Sunday, and that fires were raging

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 233

within the city. The Manchu quarter had been given
over to the flames, which lit up the sky far and wide.

But at Chungpu they found news of the north also.
Since they had passed through the district the northern
road had become as unsafe for travel as had the south.
Soldiers could not be depended upon, whilst the local
banditti, more or less in league with the secret societies,
were working unchecked. As the inn in the south
suburb of Chungpu was very exposed, our party took
such necessities as they could carry, and, leaving their
heavy boxes behind them, made their way to the Mission
preaching hall within the town walls. As it was Sunday,
church members and learners, both from the town
itself and the country around, had gathered at the
preaching-hall. There was much discussion as to what
had best be done. That the muleteers who had brought
the Youngs from Yenanfu had decamped was not
surprising. For them their animals represented most of
their available capital, and should armies begin to move
about in the district, any pack animal, with its owner
in attendance, would be impounded for military purposes.
Foreigners demonstrably in favour with the authorities
theyVould have followed gladly, for, in addition to good
pay and good treatment, they knew their animals would
be safe from being commandeered at the caprice of some
passing petty military officer. But were foreigners in
favour ? All the signs were against it. What attitude
had the local authorities taken with regard to them ?
And suddenly it was realized that there were no local
authorities at least, none who were so de jure. The
district magistrate had fled, and the well-to-do people
were following him as best they could. Such authority
as there might be was with the military guard of the
city. The demeanour of the soldiers grew more and

234 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

more insolent, and their officers had little enough power
to restrain them. A file of these men was quartered
opposite the preaching hall, and constantly swaggered
into the inner room where Mrs. Young and her child
were. They facetiously suggested that they should
" escort " the party to the provincial capital, demanding
outrageous sums for their services, and generally became
increasingly and offensively familiar.

Our little party debated whether they should attempt
to leave the building by clambering over the wall
at the back, but there was no hope of successful
evasion in a country town where a man's house is his
neighbour's pleasant opportunity for the exercise of
curiosity, and the main street a thoroughfare where
roving eyes and wagging tongues and itching ears daily
find opportunities for exercise. Escape seemed im-
possible, and yet the blind spot was discovered in the
sight of that restless street. It was at noon that the
tall evangelist darted into the room and dragged out
his foreign friends with a cry, " Come now, there is
nobody about. Come at once ! " Mrs. Young, attempt-
ing to put a few necessities together, was peremptorily
shepherded out. " Not a moment, bring nothing, come
at once ! " was the command, and they all walked down
the main street, meeting no soul save one busy water-
carrier who was too taken up with his water buckets to
note the fugitives. Give the statistician an acquaintance
with the street of a Chinese town in winternot in
summer, when at noon the flies alone keep argus eyes
agape and then ask him how often one is likely to meet
such a phenomenon an empty, unwatched Chinese
street. Hot meals may, or may not, have drawn the
soldiers and loiterers away. Whatever may have been
the reason for its opportunity, the immediate escape

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 235

was effected, and, as it proved, effected only just in time.
Someone, probably a local leader of a secret society
delighting in a little brief authority, had put out placards
that the foreigners were to be dealt with not later than
the next day. At such a time the question as to such a
placard's authenticity would not be pushed, whilst the
placard itself would suffice to let loose instincts which
might commence only in horse-play, but which would
rapidly sink into brutality. Also, if the crowd could be
induced to murder the foreigners, there would be a rush
upon the Mission property and that of every adherent of
the church. In the general scramble some useful looting
could be unostentatiously carried out. The profitable
pickings thus available for the unscrupulous would more
than offset the risk of the placards.

Not only, therefore, for their own sakes, but for the
sake of their Christian friends, it was fortunate that the
Youngs were able to reach the open country. Three
miles walking brought them to the house of a member
of the church whose name was Ts'ao, a poor peasant
who lived in one of the many cave dwellings which abound
in the district. Here, dangerous guests though they
were, they were given a warm welcome and placed in an
inside cave. By the next day things were so bad in
Chungpu that the Ts'ao family, known to be ardent
Christians, were themselves in danger, so by nightfall the
little family, carrying such of its simple earthly possessions
as it could, scattered into the hills. The old mother,
with her sons and daughters-in-law, went in one direction,
whilst Ts'ao and his hired labourer led the Youngs, with
their cook and horse-boy, in another. Ts'ao's idea was
to cross the hills by upland tracks, avoiding if possible
all main roads, and so reach the Gospel Village by way
of a town called Fu Ping. This plan on general lines

236 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

was sound, since the direct route to Sianfu was impossible
without a friendly and heavily armed escort, whereas
the Gospel Village lay in the heart of a district peopled
by Shantung immigrants who could be trusted to give
a good account of themselves if attacked by any Shensi
freebooters, whilst the village itself offered little induce-
ment in the way of loot to bring the soldiery so far away
from the main routes. What neither Ts'ao nor any of
the party at the time could know was that the Fu Ping
district, which they would have had to cross, had become
one of the most dangerous parts of the province, a strong-
hold of the Ko Lao Hui which has frequently been a
centre of disturbance since that time.

It was about midnight when they finally got away.
Liu, the horse-boy, and Chi-wa, the cook, each had a
bundle containing tins of milk, the baby's blankets and
a little bedding. The party started straight up the
mountain that looms above Chungpu. There was no
moon, only starlight. At one point on the road, where
a member of the church lived, they stopped and entered
his house with some difficulty, since he lived in the
middle of a village and it was necessary not to disturb
the neighbours. This man refused to take them in.
He said that the baby would be sure to cry and the
neighbours would then discover the whole party.
Probably the man was right, and harsh and cruel as such
a rebuff seemed to the wanderers, it made for their
ultimate safety. Several villages were reached and
passed by as silently as possible. The child, sleeping
quietly in his father's arms, gave no sound. No dog
barked, no villager stirred. Hour after hour they kept
on, until the faint dawn grew into clearer light.

At six o'clock they dared go no farther. Turning from the
main track they scouted round for some refuge. In less

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 237

than five minutes they found a deserted cave, and there
they remained all day. Towards evening Mrs. Young,
looking up to the door of the cave, was startled to see
a man gazing in upon them. He had been following his
cow about along the valley, and was as startled to see a
group of people in the cave as they were to see him. He
turned out to be an old friend of Ts'ao, whom the latter
had not seen for twenty years. Ts'ao called him in
and gave him the whole story. The new friend offered
to stand guard over them until nightfall and keep the
villagers away.

At dusk they started out again, but within a few
moments met a solitary soldier, who stood watching
them to mark the road they took. A man on scout
duty at such a place was unusual enough and did not
lessen their anxiety. However, there was nothing to
do but to go straight on. By ten o'clock the hired man
had had enough, and declared he would go no farther.
Ever since their start he had, in fancy, heard soldiers
following on their track. It says much for the character
of a simple farmer like Ts'ao that he had been able to
induce this man to stay by them so long. Whilst the
arrangements for the man's return were proceeding they
had approached a large village. Here villagers and dogs
rushed out upon them and they had to run for their
lives. In the scurry and the darkness they got separated
from Ts'ao, and at the same time lost their bedding,
which, at the moment of the villagers' rush, had been in
the keeping of the hired man. Safely away from the
village they waited a long time, but Ts'ao did not re-
appear. Liu, the horse-boy, went back to the village to
seek him, but returned unsuccessful. Both Liu and
Chi-wa, the cook, resigned themselves to the idea that
Ts'ao as well as the hired man had abandoned them,

238 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

but Dr. and Mrs. Young never wavered in their faith
in Ts'ao.

Nothing was to be gained, however, by remaining
where they were, so they pushed on. They did not
know the road, but tried to work southwards. The moon
was up by that time, but suddenly thick clouds came up
and covered the whole sky, so that they lost all sense of
direction and could do no more than follow the first path
they discovered, and along it they walked for the best
part of the night. " We went on as long as we could
put one foot before the other, and then had to lie down
beside the road in the wilderness." The one thin quilt
remaining to them was that belonging to the cook
who had carried it over his shoulder. The horse
boy, the cook, the doctor and Mrs. Young, who had
wrapped Russell within her gown, all lay on the
ground and tried to find cover under this one thin
quilt.

" It was miserably cold, and we were very hungry
and thirsty. When it began to look like dawn we
gathered some dried grass and made a little fire and
tried to warm ourselves before we started. We had
two hard-boiled eggs of which we gave Russell the yolks,
and the four of us divided the whites amongst us. And
then we started off again."

As the light grew they found themselves at the top of
a hill and saw that the path they were following led
down the hill-side to a city, and, as the light cleared,
they found that of all places this was the Ichun from
which they had retreated five days previously, a place
which, for foreigners, was a perfect trap. The cook
went down to see if he could pick up any useful informa-
tion. A little below them lay a house with outbuildings,
and, fearing there might be difficulty in getting by

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 239

unseen, they sent the horse boy on ahead to see how
the land lay. " We always knew that he was not very
brilliant, but we thought his stupidity had reached its
limit when we saw him knocking at the door of the house
and then evidently telling the people all about us, as we
could see him pointing in our direction. Feeling that it
was all over we went down after him, and the people of
the house asked us in, gave as a seat and brought us a
bowl of food, and then one person after another came
in and looked at us and walked out."

The horse boy, meanwhile, had gone to look for the
cook, and though not finding him returned in company
with a youth related to the people of the house. Since
the house was on the main path and dangerously near
to the city, its owners arranged for their young relative
to take the Youngs to a cave near by and then return
to bring them food. Truly the horse boy had builded
better than he knew when he took the risk of seeking
these people's aid. And yet he might so easily have
blundered badly, for the man of the house was a promi-
nent member of the notorious Elder Brethren Society.
But his wife was a wonderful woman. It was she who
undertook the burden of befriending these fugitive
strangers, planning for their safety, and enlisting the
sympathy of the few people whom she was obliged to
trust in the matter. The first instance of her staunch-
ness and her shrewdness was shown within a few hours
of their arrival, when Ts'ao, who had been hunting
wildly for them all the night, managed to track them
down. He had reasoned out that, lost in the darkness
of the previous night this was their likeliest road, as it
led to a city, whilst the track he had planned to follow
to Fu Ping would be too faint for them to distinguish.
Arrived at Ichun, and knowing that they would not

240 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

venture down into the town, he divined that this house
was the place which was sheltering them. Inquiring,
he was met with vigorous denials until he at last made
it clear to the owners that he was the friend of the
refugees. When he found the latter unharmed he
literally wept for joy.

And now there was an opportunity to do more than
march through the darkness and hide during the day-
time with no objective save the safety of the next few
hours. With the resources of this brave woman and
the devotion of Ts'ao in their favour they could plan
for something more. Long into the night these two,
with their young helper and the cook and the horse
boy, discussed this and that plan. The Youngs had the
good sense to leave it to them. Finally it was arranged
that the young man should go with the two house-boys
to Sianfu, since, until the situation there was more clearly
understood, the Youngs and their helpers were working
in the dark. They would carry a letter written with
such materials as were at hand and bring back help
from the city if the authorities were by this time showing
protection to the foreigners. It was a dangerous task
and a difficult, but at the risk of their lives the three
boys undertook it. The wife's family lived in a quiet
place twelve miles away. From a man taken into their
confidence the wife hired two mules, on which the Youngs
were to ride when night fell. It was all sufficiently
desperate ; the strange family in the hills might refuse
them shelter, the youths going to the city might easily
be set upon and killed ; yet compared with the previous
flights it held some hope and some meaning. The cook
said he was sure it was the Lord's way. " His heart
was peaceful as it had not been before." So the boys
started southwards, whilst the Youngs clambered on to

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 241

their mules. Russell, the baby, was strapped on to
Ts'ao's back and, carried in this way, slept soundly.
And this was the journey :

"Andrew's mule threw him the first minute he got
on. They had no saddles, only 'to-tzu'. 1 I had a
' p'u-kai ' 2 on mine, but even so it was the most uncom-
fortable thing I ever sat on. We went through the
bush, up and down the hills, through the wildest part
of the country, near villages, but again no one heard us.
About four o'clock in the morning we came to a thresh-
ing floor in the hills, with three or four cave houses about
it. The people in one of the houses were roused and
asked us in. Andrew and Ts'ao had been taking turns
all night carrying Russell, as on that road it was impossible
to carry him and to ride. We were all completely worn
out. I had been falling asleep and dreaming on the mule,
and woke time and time again, just slipping off. Our
guide had to be back in the early morning with the mules
so as not to be missed, so the men in the house imme-
diately set to work making food for him, and while they
pulled the bellows they were discussing what they should
do with us. We got up on the bed and leaned against
the grain sacks, and every once in a while half awoke to
hear what was going on, but it was not until afterwards
that I really knew or cared what they were talking
about. I have often wondered what would happen if
a family in England should be wakened up in the middle
of the night by absolute strangers fleeing for their lives
and asked to take them in and hide, feed, and generally
provide for them ; knowing that it would mean certain
death for themselves if they were caught thus giving
succour to people who were not only strangers but

1 A wooden frame saddle on which packs are placed.

2 A quilt.

Q

242 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

foreigners as well ! The only trouble in those men's
minds was the old couple who lived next door to them.
They said the old man was a dreadful chatterer, and if
he knew that we were there, he would just go down to
the fair, and it would soon be all over the country. How
to circumvent the old man and his wife was what they
were talking about. At last they decided that they
would take us about a mile up the valley to another
deserted cave, and that they would bring food up to us
there, and keep a general look-out and see that nobody
went up that way.

" We had to get up again, and walk up the valley in
the dark. It was just like every other deserted cave
except that far in on one side there was a hole about two
feet in diameter, partly in the floor, partly in the wall.
This led down into a little place that had evidently been
dug out to store grain. It was just high enough to
stand upright in, and it was big enough for us
to lie down in, with room for Ts'ao to lie across
our feet. There was plenty of ventilation through
some rat-holes, and they put straw down for us to lie on.
We stayed there for a week. It was very difficult keep-
ing Russell quiet. We could not let him make a sound,
and had to give him everything he wanted, so you can
imagine he was spoiled and dirty. (For that matter
' dirty ' described us all.) I am sure you would be
horrified if I told you what he had to eat, but the Lord
certainly watched over his inside, and he is as well as
possible. We had delicious food ; maize bread, maize
porridge and pumpkins. Their wheat crop had failed
them, and they were living on Indian corn. Sometimes
in the daytime, when they told us it was safe, we went
up into the big cave.

" At night these four men used to climb down into our

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 243

little hole. We crowded in together, and they all smoked
and asked questions about everything in Heaven and
earth. They apologised often for keeping us up until
after midnight in this way, but they said, ' You know
it is our only chance to ever learn about anything at all.'
" One of the men or his wife used to bring us our food
three times a day. Once we were asked to go down to
hide in the valley because a man had come who used to
hunt through all the caves for some sort of moss that he
used for medicines, and they were not at all sure that
they would be able to keep him away from our cave.
We had with us a little copy of the Psalms in the American
Jewish translation, and a copy of one of Dr. Morgan's
sermons, the text of which was " A Coffin in Egypt."
We had a biscuit box without a lid, and a comb, and a
tin opener, a ' p'u-kai,' and nothing else in the world.
I had torn my skirt up to tie on Andrew's head as a
turban. During the week Ts'ao went home, leaving one
night, and getting back to us the next. The night after
we had left his house it had been burnt by the soldiers,
but all his family were safe. Our friend the tall evangelist
also spent a night or two with us. It was rather a tight
squeeze. Then after we had been there for a week the
boys came back with our escort. The noise of a match
scratching above the hole was the way our visitors were
announced."

For the three young men had succeeded in their ven-
ture. Several times on the way they were set on. They
were robbed of what meagre store they had, but finally
they had reached Sianfu and made their way to the
Mission, bringing great relief to the people there, who
had day after day longed for some news from the north.
When the republican authorities got sufficient grasp
of the situation in Sianfu to establish some order, one

244 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

of their first concerns was to put two or three capable
men in charge of an office to deal with the affairs of the
foreigners in the province. This office was roughly
termed by us " the foreign office " or " the provincial
foreign office." The new Governor and his staff knew
only too well that such an office would be sadly needed
after the disastrous way the foreigners' safety had been
overlooked in the first place. Looking round for a good
second in command here, he appointed Mr. Shih, who
had been Young's language teacher. He had, when
acting in that capacity for Dr. Creasy Smith in 1900,
been for months in Peking after the Siege of the Legations.
He had travelled widely in China, was conversant with
the foreign point of view, and a better appointment could
hardly have been made at such a juncture. On hearing
of the Youngs' plight he was not only shocked because
of the reflection such treatment would bring to the new
provincial government, he was deeply distressed as a
personal friend of the sufferers. He acted with energy
and courage, demanding a heavily-armed escort, full
powers to deal with local authorities en route, money
and conveyances. Arriving at Ichun he sent forward
a part of the guard under the guidance of Young's two
boys to bring the fugitives into the town, whilst he
himself stayed with the remainder of the guard so as to
impress upon the town leaders the importance of his
mission, and to see that there should be no ebullition of
temper in the place. As a result, the public welcome
given to the Youngs upon their appearance was a useful
little lesson to the whole of that district, and an excellent
bit of instruction for that northern road. Mr. Shih
might not know the word " propaganda " ; he thoroughly
understood the thing.
From their rat-hole ventilated cave the little group

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 245

arrived at dawn at the house by the threshing-floor, much
to the astonishment of the old man (he of the chat-
terer's reputation) and woman, who had no idea whence
these foreigners had come who seemed to have dropped
upon them from the skies. The ten soldiers who had
come for them had fine horses and were very elegantly
clad in loot from Sianfu. " Ichun turned out to welcome
us. Such a stylish crowd of local infantry you never
saw, but our ten special horsemen outshone them all.
They certainly did treat us kindly. I only wished I
were a little cleaner, and that my clothes had been a bit
more respectable, to do honour to all the fuss. You
cannot imagine how hard it is to keep clean without
soap, especially when lying on straw in a cave. Poor
Mr. Shih nearly wept when he met us. They took us
to the officials' guest-house and sent us in a fine dinner
from the Yamen" 1 (C. M. Y.).

On the road south there was only one difficulty. On
its way up north, Shih's troop had had trouble in getting
through the town of Peitungkuan, in spite of all their
documents from the authorities in Sianfu. (Writs in
China then, as now, had a way of running but a short
distance from their place of issue.) There was some
anxiety as to the possible nature of their reception on
the return journey. However, just a little while before
they were due in the place it began to rain very heavily,
and it was pouring so when they went through that
there was not a soul in the street nor even at the house
doors. But as soon as they were safely through it
cleared up again and did not rain until they reached San
Yuan, forty miles to the south.

At San Yuan they were given a day's rest. In their
own deserted house " we fortunately found some clean

1 Magistrate's office.

246 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

underclothes and so were able to burn those we had been
wearing for these weeks, but outwardly we were just the
same when we reached Sianfu the next day, and went
into the prayer meeting " (C. M. Y.).

It is a remarkable chronicle. When one thinks of the
many times when but for a timely " coincidence " they
might have been lost, it is difficult to quarrel with the
Youngs' verdict that such coincidences were nothing but
the immediate providences of a Heavenly Father. As a
record of endurance passed through with good sense,
good humour, and good temper, it is well worth preserving.
In it one sees how to a real piety there can be wedded an
unquenchable cheeriness and a fine sense of proportion.

Still more important is the light shed upon the Chinese
character. A point frequently reverted to by English
reviewers when dealing with books on Chinese life is
that " nearly every author expresses, in one part or
another of his work, a great admiration for the Chinese
race, and for the social and political virtues that charac-
terise it. We are perpetually told that they are law-
abiding, honest, kindly, industrious, and physically
vigorous. . . . The author is throughout benevolently
anxious to assure his world that he admires the Chinese.
But the character of his evidence is demonstrated by
the fact that almost the largest number of entries in
the index are under the words, ' blood, lust for,' and
' squeeze.' ' J1
One cannot but admit the reasonableness of this

1 " The Chinese Puzzle." A review in the New Statesman, May 3rd,
1913, of " The Trade and Administration of China," by H. B, Morse ;
" How England Saved China," by J. Macgowan ; " The Passing of
the Dragon," by J. C. Keyte. The reviewer finds the same trend in
the writings of Dr. A. H. Smith.

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 247

contention. It does seem inconsistent to speak repeatedly
in praise of the Chinese people and within the covers of
the same volume to have a damaging index with many
references to " squeeze," " bandits," " armed coolies,"
" professional politicians," and the like. In this respect
the present volume will doubtless prove upon examination
as guilty as its predecessors. The explanation of the
seeming inconsistency is to be found in such characters
as those appearing in this narrative. Few if any foreign
writers with any claim at all to write of China have lived
long in the country without having known some such
men or women ; the lao-ta l who hazards his life for us
in the Yangtze gorges, the yamen-runner who has
ridden with us through the long night hours carrying
our luggage in a frame upon his back, risking his life in
the defile that we might always have the safe side of the
path ; the servant of a drunken foreigner at the coast
who, in spite of numerous provocations, remains loyal,
nursing his master in sickness, fending for him when
he is out of funds. (The "boy" will take his "squeeze "
in the days of prosperity, be sure of that, but his
faithfulness will stand a long strain through many
dark days.) And when one comes to the peasantry of
China one feels sometimes almost reverent ; so hard and
grinding is their lot, so cheerful their disposition, so brave
a face do they show to the winds of adversity. How
many of them, like Meredith's " Maria of the dirty fin-
gers", were " born on a hired bed", with poverty threaten-
ing their birth and grinning at them in their death, who
yet will do deeds of disinterested kindness. Think for
instance of this woman of Ichun. " I do not think she
had any motive except pity, although she was very poor.
There may have been some suggestion that we would
1 The captain of a boat's crew.

248 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

help her in some way afterwards, but it certainly was
not put very prominently " (C. M. Y.). From the same
class came the two boys, cook and groom, who absolutely
refused to leave their master and his that day though
they knew they risked death by remaining.

And Ts'ao " dear old Ts'ao," as he was always
afterwards to the Youngs what an Israelite in whom
there was no guile, he was and is. A simple, hard-
working, happy soul, who goes on his way season after
season, gaining his living out of the soil, content with
the food of the day, the suit that lasts for years, and
for a house a cave dwelling to which we would not con-
demn our domestic animals. In later years when, by
tramping ten days five there and five back he could
at the farmers' slack season get to Sianfu or San Yuan
to see the Youngs, and especially little Russell, he came
with all the simplicity and the dignity of a friend. He
had no idea of making any financial profit by the trip on
account of what had been in the past. To learn more of
his Saviour from the friend across whose feet he had lain
in that northern cave and who had then made that
Saviour his chief theme; to pray with one to whom
prayer was a secret learned in holy experiences ; to talk
over the list of the remembered mercies of those breath-
less days this was enough for Ts'ao. A man in courage,
in endurance, and in faithfulness ; a child in simplicity
and in affection. And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.

CHAPTER XI
The Dramatic Year

II. Toiling in the Plains

THE Sianfu Hospital at the time of the Revolutionary
outbreak happily had upon its staff four qualified British
medicals ; three of these Young, Robertson, and
Charter were on the field, whilst Stanley Jenkins, the
fourth member, was in England on furlough.

On the Sunday of the outbreak Young was, as we have
seen, in the northern hills, whilst Cecil Robertson, who
was visiting patients in the East Suburb, was debarred
by the closed gates from re-entering the city. The whole
brunt of the first few days' surgical work amongst the
wounded fell upon Dr. G. A. Charter, who did yeoman
service.

During the first hour of the rising Herr Henne, the post-
master in Sianfu, was attacked in the street, pulled from
his horse, and wounded by the mob before he was rescued
by a few soldiers who escorted him to his house, mounted
guard there, and sent some comrades to the hospital for
Dr. Charter. Dr. Charter's little child, Dorothy, had
been very ill and was slowly dying. To leave the house
at such a time was very difficult, but Arthur Charter
went through a howling mob and reached Herr Henne.
But the soldiers who had summoned him dared not

249

250 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

attempt the return journey, whilst the street called
" Silver Street " the one in which the larger banking
concerns of the city were housed was one mass of
maddened looters. Hour after hour went by before
Dr. Charter was able to accomplish the return journey.
When he succeeded in reaching the hospital his child was
dead.

In the meantime the hospital had been savagely
attacked by a Mohammedan mob armed during that
fatal hour when General Chang Pei-ying and his fellow
republicans had handed out arms indiscriminately in
the innocent belief that an enthusiasm for " The Repub-
lic " would turn every man to whom cartridges and a
rifle were given into a gallant and disinterested patriot.
To the Mohammedans their Chinese neighbours
imperialist or republican alike were swine-eating car-
rion and to be treated as such. Ferocious, courageous,
hardy, with a natural aptitude for arms and a working
organization through their mosque Ahungs (teachers), it
was a wonder that the Mohammedans did not seize the
entire city and work their will. With a little preparedness
beforehand they might well have done so, but probably
the outbreak surprised them as much as it did the
Manchus. What saved the city from their domination
was itself dreadful enough ; it was their love of loot.
During the first few days they were so| busy rifling
banks, pawnshops and warehouses, that the republicans
were able to regain control of Sianfu and their forces
swept the small Mohammedan looting parties back
into their own quarter in the north-west portion of
the city.

It was in their first rush of looting that the Moham-
medan attack was made upon the hospital, which, in
addition to its hated Christianity, had probably quite an

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 251

unfounded reputation for wealth. The attack was
repulsed through the fine courage of the young head of
the local Foreign Office happily a near neighbour a
Christian gentleman who had until the day previously
been the head of the English Department in the Govern-
ment College. He gathered together a group of students
and teachers and fought off the assailants

The hospital steadily filled with wounded. For the
doctor and his colleagues there was no time for private
sorrow, still less for personal fears. On army stretchers,
on wrenched-off doors, on improvised hurdles, on tables
turned upside down, on the backs of men, in carts and
sedan chairs patients came pouring in. Well for them that
a man of equable temperament, good nerve, and a fine
physique able to stand a prolonged strain was there to
attend them. Arthur Charter must, during those first
few days, have performed more surgical operations than
some of his China colleagues had done in a year. Many
of these operations must have been new to him in actual
experience, and there was no time now to consult authori-
ties and look for precedents ; it was one unresting effort
with probe and knife and needle and saw. Well was it
for Sianfu that day that in 1904 Stanley Jenkins had
laid his plans deeply and well, and that he and Andrew
Young, during the years between, had been working out
those plans in brotherly loyalty and selflessness. The
organization creaked and groaned under the strain put
upon it, but it held.

It was the business manager of the hospital that very
human sinner who could combine a dexterity in " squeeze"
with a genuine desire for the hospital's standing in the
city 1 who had the brilliant idea of going to the authori-
ties with the proposition that for their own sakes though

1 See Chapter VII.

252 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

the business manager was thinking of the safety and
reputation of the hospital they should get Dr. Robertson
into the city, If they feared to open the city gate, then
let a hospital volunteer be lowered from the city wall,
thus making the situation clear to the doctor and ensuring
his prompt response. The hospital had its volunteer for
the risky business. T'ien-yu might have an uncertain
and boyish temper, but he had all a boy's love of adven-
ture and an unusual amount of pluck. So with a rope
fastened under his arms he was lowered from the city
wall, and with an escort of soldiers reached the Mission
premises. Cecil Robertson at this time was only twenty-
nine. Brilliant surgeon and fine administrator as he was,
the idea of being hauled up by ropes over the walls had
enough of the adventurous in it to appeal to him,
and he thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. After
the horrors he had seen, and the grief at what had hap-
pened in the South Suburb, this bizarre entry into the
city and the call to immediate action in his own field
of work meant pure relief. For Charter, in the city,
the advent of his colleague brought that reinforcement
which comes to the medical man who has a fellow
practitioner at hand with whom to consult on technical
points.

By the 16th of November the Youngs joined them.
But by this time the attacks in force upon the new
republican leaders had involved such heavy fighting at
the eastern and western borders of the province that
there was a call for field hospital work in both directions.
As soon as Young appeared Cecil Robertson went off to
T'ung Kuan, the fortress guarding the passes leading from
the Honan province to that of Shensi, 1 and shortly

1 See " Cecil Robertson's Life and Letters," Chapter VIII ; " The
Passing of the Dragon," Chapters XVII-XIX.

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 253

afterwards Young was asked to do similar work in the
west on the Kansuh border, so that for three months the
doctor who knew most of the cases coming into the
hospital from the city itself was Arthur Charter, though
Cecil Robertson brought back a pitiful line of broken men
with him from the east whilst Young was sending in cases
from the west.

One of Young's earliest patients in the city was the
"Fan-t'ai", the Provincial Treasurer under the old
regime. Cut off from the world he knew and the authority
he recognized, suicide had appeared to him the one
resource. He had tried to shoot himself, but had bungled
it. Robertson had extracted the bullet before Young's
arrival. On December 5th Young wrote : " Our wards
are still as full as ever. No sooner does one go out than
another is ready to take his place, though there are not
quite so many wounded. . . . The other day a man came
in who had been shot, the bullet having gone in just at
the side of the lower part of the nose and out behind the
ear, shattering the bones on that side, and the nerve
supplying one side of the face. This occurred six weeks
before admission. ... If more wounded come in, the
authorities will have to give us a new place as a hospital ;
we cannot take more on our present premises."

Ultimately the authorities had to put three other
buildings at their disposal. The hospital " wards "
had before that, winter as it was, flowed over into the
courtyards, the stable out-buildings, and even to thatched
lean-to's placed against the stable yard walls. It was
with difficulty that one could thread a way between the
wounded lying on straw pallets on the ground. That
sentence in the extract above : " This occurred six weeks
before admission ", gives some idea of the urgency and
the overcrowding.

254 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

When Young was asked to go to the west, his little
boy Russell was ill, and the city and country were still
very unsettled. " I could not very well refuse, though
I would rather have done anything than leave Charlotte
and Russell when things were so unsettled. As, however,
it was a matter of life and death for so many people and
a unique opportunity for preaching the Gospel as well,
we decided that we should go." With assistants and
stores they filled four carts. Mr. Shih, released from
the " Foreign Office " for the trip, was appointed by the
authorities to go with the party, and was of great
assistance.

The first trip was a miserable fiasco, owing not to any
fault in the medical arrangements, but through the
shocking poltroonery of the Shensi troops. On their
way westwards the hospital party were heartily received
and entertained by the local magistrates at towns en
route. By the time they reached Ch'ien Chou, fifty-three
miles west of Sianfu, they began to meet with cases of
the slightly wounded being sent in carts to Sianfu
Hospital.

The city on the Shensi-Kansuh border, which was their
objective, was Pin Chou. From Ch'ien Chou to Pin
Chou the ground rises sharply, so that they were soon
in hill country where the cold was intense. The road
grew steadily worse and progress increasingly difficult.
Their four carts had by this time been caught up into a
train of heavily laden ammunition wagons. During the
day several small bands of mounted soldiers coming from
Pin Chou reached them, men who had been sent to hurry
forward the ammunition, as fighting was growing hotter
and the Shensi ammunition was falling short. We were
to learn later something of the reckless waste of ammuni-
tion by Chinese soldiery, the senseless blazing away to

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 255

keep up their own spirits or to impress a possible but by
no means located enemy.

It was within less than seventeen miles of Pin Chou,
their objective, that they met with the first signs of
a defeated army : a stream of mounted men who came
clattering down the hill in a tearing hurry. These made
no concealment of the situation. There had been a
battle, the Shensi troops had been defeated, and were
now scattering. The mounted men were followed by
hundreds of foot soldiers and a long procession of carts ;
carters and soldiers lashing the poor animals as if the
enemy were close at their heels. It was evidently a
sauve qui peut. In Chinese fighting those suffer most
who have least power of choice. In the north, where
there is wheeled traction, the wretched animals who drag
the carts become the victims. In the south and west,
where not more than one-tenth of the burdens carried
are borne by pack animals, it is the coolie porter who
has been torn from his home, his field, the village street,
or the town tea shop, who is caught in the mad panic
of defeat. " It was a regular stampede, the soldiers
lashing the horses and mules to top speed with their
swords, and getting almost desperate at any delay. It
certainly was hard on the poor animals, because it was
a fearfully hilly and difficult road. I was part of the
time on horseback. After having gone about five
miles our cart came to a very difficult part of the
road, so Mr. Shih and I got out and walked slowly on
ahead.

" We walked several miles and heard no sound of carts
following, so we began to get rather anxious about them.
Then someone came along who told us that the soldiers
and the carters behind had got impatient and desperate,
and hacl taken the mules out of the carts and ridden off

256 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

with them, while others had helped themselves to what
of our things were portable, and tumbled the carts over
a brow to make way for the others." This is the sort
of incident which makes the average foreigner in China
throw up his hands and declare that the country is
hopeless. The fine industry and uncomplaining patience
which one so admires in the peasant toiling on his land
for the good of the patriarchal group grandfather and
grandmother, the many sons and daughters-in-law and
the swarm of children all this is lost when, taken from
the family, the unit to which he is accustomed, he is
clad in uniform and made into a cog. of a machine which
has no traditions and commands no loyalty. The only
ideal which he knows has been removed from him, no
other has taken its place. For students and the old
literati " the state " may be a sound with virtue, " the
country " may have some clarion call though the signs
of this are none too manifest to-day but for the illiterate
the terms are meaningless. For him the army means
a livelihood pure and simple. In the days when Andrew
Young took his trips on the western road, the ordinary
term for a soldier a term used in all seriousness and
with no thought of reproach or irony was " ch'ih liang
ti " (one who eats rations). Loot for the victor was
naturally understood, but no idea of wounds or death
for the sake of the cause came into the contract. If
these threatened, one effected a strategic retirement to
the rear. Duke et decorum est was to be applied to other
activities than dying for one's country. The whole
sentiment of nationalism had yet to be grown in the
minds of such " ai kuo tis " (one who loves his country)
as marched on those Shensi roads. This last term was
coined at the beginning of the revolution, being the
students' translation of the word " patriot " found in

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 257

foreign histories, particularly those of the French
Republic, but the thing denoted by the term had yet
to appear.

Young's chagrin over this wretched retreat was thor-
oughly human. He had a healthy dislike of acknowledg-
ing a defeat. He pleaded vehemently that having come
so far they should manage somehow to get to the front.
The wholesale exhibition of senseless funk was nauseating.
Time and again he tried to persuade the group of sqldiers
and carters assigned to escort the hospital stores to
wait quietly at some stopping place whilst the stream
went by, so that when the road was clear they might
proceed westward. It was in vain. They were deaf to
all but the voice of their own fear.

At Ch'ien Chou, an important city, he hoped that the
retreating army might make a stand. They could have
put up a respectable fight there, and later, when Chang
Yun-san, 1 the one outstanding man of courage on this
western front led a force towards Kansuh, this was his
head-quarters. But at the time there was no fight in
the troops. " We reached Yung Shou Hsien, where we
hoped to stay, between nine and ten o'clock at night, but
we could not get our people to stop there. It was too near
the scene of action. So after feeding the animals they
started again. Our hope then was that they would stop
at Ch'ien Chou and make a stand there. We travelled
all night and arrived at Ch'ien Chou about eleven
o'clock next day, only to find the city deserted, both
soldiers and inhabitants having cleared out. We had
therefore to move on again, and arrived at this place,
Li Chun Hsien, at nightfall, having travelled ninety
miles, only stopping to feed the animals. We were
pretty tired by that time as well as pretty sick of

1 See Chapter X., p. 229.

K

258 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

having had to retreat when we were so near our
destination."

Ninety miles with only hurried halts for feeding the
mules is a most exhausting experience. To do it in
peace time without complications is sufficiently strenuous,
as one who has experienced it can vouch, but to do it
in such circumstances as Young was then in was utterly
exhausting. No wonder that when a local friend of
Mr. Shih gave them a " nice warm room " they " had
a delightful night's rest ".

At Hsien Yang, twenty-three miles from Sianfu,
they found a General Ch'in who was on his way to
the front. He was very indignant at what had occurred,
and promised to do his best to recover the lost hospital
property.

Being so near to Sianfu, Young hurried back for
further equipment. Fortunately most of the medical
and surgical appliances had not been in the overturned
cart, and had escaped untouched. He arranged with
General Ch'in that a temporary hospital should be
established at Ch'ien Chou, from which point Young
hoped to be able to get later to Pin Chou itself, making
such arrangements as he could meanwhile for the wounded
from the western border to be sent down to Ch'ien Chou.
Local politics were very much subservient in his mind
to his duties both as doctor and evangelist. " We are
kept perfectly peaceful and calm, being sure that the
Lord is leading and giving us this unprecedented oppor-
tunity. Should the Shensi troops be defeated and we
fall into the hands of the Imperialists, I expect we shall
still find plenty to do." Ten days later, when writing
from his hastily improvised hospital at Ch'ien Chou,

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 259

he had had further experience of the Shensi troops'
qualities, and says : "I am afraid the soldiers of this
province are lacking in courage and stamina, and for
the most part are raw and untrained, so I don't know
how things will go. We [i.e. the little field-hospital
group at Ch'ien Chou] may fall into the hands of the
Kansuh troops and have to transfer our services to
them, but I hope not, as that would mean separation
from Charlotte and Russell for an indefinite period.
That at any time would be hard, but especially so in
these troublous times."

It was on this trip that he just managed to enter
Ch'ien Chou with two personal servants before the
Kansuh troops sat down before it for a siege. T'ien-yu,
his most experienced assistant, who acted as his anesthe-
tist, was close behind them, but before he could reach
the city the besiegers had arrived. He hung about
for some time hoping that a means of ingress might
be found, but when it becam^ evident that he could
not slip through the besiegers' lines, and so give help to
the doctor, he returned sadly to Sianfu. Young was
left in the midst of a crowd of wounded, his only helpers
being a cook and a groom. And with their aid he had
to get to work. Such provision as he could make before
starting to operate he did : the sterilizing, the placing of
trays, boiling kettles, and waste pails ; but much of the
ritual dear to the heart of any cleanly surgeon had to
go. A lightning course as anaesthetist was given to the
groom, and in swabbing and instrument handling to the
cook. And then they set to work. The groom gave the
chloroform, but it was the doctor who had, in addition
to his operating, to watch the patient's condition under
the anaesthetic. Hour after hour went by, and still they
toiled. The unaccustomed assistants, sturdy country

260 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

boys free from the oppression of responsibility, were
tired enough : how must the surgeon have felt who
had to keep track of so many vital processes, with life
after life depending upon his steadiness and resource ?
Yet they lost no single case through any untoward
accident, and he was able to send his wounded on later
in quietness and comfort to the base hospital in Sianfu.

By March it was known in Shensi that the Republic
had been proclaimed, and that China was nominally at
peace. But the Kansuh Mohammedans had no intention
of lightly letting go the Shensi cities which they had
captured, and they still hoped to reach Sianfu, which,
looted though it had been in October, was still a glittering
prize. So the weary work went on. " The wounds that
we have to treat here are generally several days old
before we see them, and they are usually suppurating
badly. It is really sickening, and in many cases hopeless
work, because we cannot begin to do justice to so many.
We can, however, help a little. We trust also that the
work, will have an effect in preparing the way for the
entrance of the Gospel. There is certainly a marked
willingness on the part of the soldiers to listen. The
assistants and staff have started, on their own initiative,
a weekly prayer meeting, which is well attended and
heartily taken up. They did this when we were feeling
that everything seemed to be cold and lifeless amongst
the staff, and that they had been evincing no interest
in spiritual things at all. We had been much in prayer
about it."

By March the former imperialist soldiers, who had
been fighting Shensi troops on the eastern (Honan pro-
vince) side, were sent up to Sianfu with a view to going
forward to Kansuh to put an end to what was fast
approaching a Mohammedan rebellion. The newcomers

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 261

had no kindly feelings to the Shensi province. The
conclusion of peace between republicans and the former
imperialist forces had robbed them of the opportunity
of entering the province as conquerors, but they were
no sooner safely within Sianfu walls than they mutinied,
looted the city, and then dispersed in bands over the
countryside, burning and looting and worse as they
went. The movement spread east to those of their
fellows who were still on the march from the Honan
border, so that the eastern portion of Shensi was now
to know what the west had long been suffering. All this
meant added work for the hospital. To complicate
matters still further they had an outbreak of typhus
and another of smallpox amongst the hospital inmates.
" There is certainly no chance of dullness here just
now." (C. M. Y.).

It was whilst on his trips to the west attending to the
wounded that Young got a further attack of appendicitis,
for which he had to treat himself as best he could. When
it was over he knew that he must get to Sianfu, probably
for an operation, without further delay. As soon as
he could rise from his bed he rode into the city. The
one available horse was about the worst in the Mission
stable, one that had a vicious trot instead of the easy
amble which so often lightens a missionary's work. Young
got over the attack, but another occurred in the middle
of April. Even then it was hoped that an operation
might be deferred until he could get away from Shensi
and have it done under more favourable conditions,
after a rest at Shanghai or Kuling. This was the case
on the twentieth of April. A few days previously the
doctors had been wondering what could be done in case

262 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

any of them needed an operation for appendicitis, as
some of the necessaries for such an operation were not
at hand, and the unprecedented drain upon the medical
stores had even taken their last available chloroform.
And on the twenty-first, through all the hundred and one
dangers and possible mishaps which might have held
them up on those army-harried roads, their long expected
medical stores from the coast arrived. They came in the
nick of time, for on the morning of the twenty-second
Young was so ill that Robertson operated in the
afternoon.

It was no wonder that they dreaded it, for the condi-
tions could hardly have been worse. " We had come to
the conclusion that whatever happened, we could not
operate because of the fearfully dirty wounds that the
doctors had been dealing with. You could see that
they just hated, when at table, to touch with their
hands any of the food they ate." (C. M. Y.).

They had decided to wire for help to Peking, hoping that
a surgeon from there might be spared who had been
living in cleaner conditions. But by six in the morning
Young was so much worse that Robertson decided to
operate, and his wire saying that he had done so reached
Peking at the same time as the appeal for help.

Dr. Charter had gone down to the coast in January,
and so, whilst one of the boys acted as anaesthetist,
T'ien yu and Mrs. Young acted as assistants to Cecil
Robertson in a long and difficult operation. For the
colleague in charge the operation meant a heavy demand
upon his resources ; for Mrs. Young, working by his
side, it was a truly remarkable victory.

The operation was followed by a disconcerting rise of
temperature which gave anxiety. After a day or two,
however, they found out that the trouble was due to

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 263

the patient's old African malaria, which had been started
again either by the appendicitis or the operation. They
put him on quinine, with the result that the next day
he was doing well. Weeks of convalescence followed,
so exhausted had he been before his collapse, and he
was not able to do much more before leaving the province,
first for Kuling and then for home furlough.

Before the end of April arrangements had been begun
for a Chinese medical student, then in his last term at
the old Union Medical College, Peking, to go to Sianfu,
so that the doctors there might get away for at least a
short spell. (This programme still held for Cecil Robert-
son, but for Andrew Young a home furlough was impera-
tive.) The Peking medical student accepted the post
very reluctantly. He looked upon Shensi as a wilderness
where dreadful things happened, and where civilization
was not. As for the road there, he flatly refused to
attempt it unless a foreigner would go with him.

Poor Dr. Chang ! How he hated that road journey !
In Peking he had been used to electric lights, paved
roads and decent streets. And he had not been reared
on Jules Verne and Henty and Ballantyne. He hated it
all ; the dirty inns, where doors and window-frames had
been burnt by passing soldiers for their hasty evening
fires, the half-cooked coarse Chinese vermicelli, the rough-
ness of the soldiery, the difference in patois everything.
It was left for the foreigner who thought there was no
place like Sianfu, no road like the great highway leading
up without a break into far-off Chinese Turkestan to
try to reconcile him with the new surroundings. And
his effort failed. And here one touches the weakness of
much reasoning that is based on the hopes of the Western-
trained Chinese student. The product of the process has
arrived, during the course of his training, at a decided

264 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

preference for the pleasant outlook on life available in
Peking, Shanghai, or some similar modernized city. He
has no sentimental fervour for " the real China", "the
Interior," and so on. He leaves such enthusiasms to
the appreciative foreigner. It is all quite human, quite
understandable, but it breaks in upon dreams of progress
which take it for granted that the raw youth, from
Kansuh let us say, who is given a Western education in
America, Europe or on the China coast, will after gradua-
tion have no other idea than to return to Kansuh and
there spend the remainder of his days endeavouring to
pass on his knowledge to his less enlightened fellow-
provincials. With a percentage of students this may be
the case ; but, remembering human nature, it would be
folly to expect a hundred per cent., whilst to rail at
the " ingratitude " of the non-returning student is merely
childish. And let it be frankly remembered that if such
a student is sent abroad " on mission funds " the
mission has its own arriere-pensee in thus financing him,
and should be prepared to take in silence a disappoint-
ment in connection with his subsequent course.

Dr. Chang at least had more excuse than many
another, for with the best will in the. world to make
out a good case for it, Shensi could hardly yet be pictured
as a nest of singing birds. The wells were still being
uncovered in the Manchu city ; at the end of April one
such was found to contain ten bodies, " probably of
women and children." They were relatives of a Manchu
whose life had been saved because with other wounded
he had been brought into the hospital.

" Two or three days ago a beautiful Manchu girl of
fifteen was brought in with her hand cut off. She had
been taken by a soldier at the time of the massacre
(October, 1911), who has now done this to her, probably

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 265

in a quarrel. Re said it was an accident that a knife
had slipped. Just imagine a knife slipping and cutting
a hand off ! I must do him the justice to say that he
seemed very sorry, and is doing all he can to make her
comfortable by buying things for her.

"The day after a man was brought in who had had
both feet cut off by the Kansuh soldiers. He had had his
leg broken at the time of the fighting, and they had found
him lying helpless and in their cruelty had cut off his feet.

" What a mercy it is that those Kansuh soldiers never
reached here. If they had taken the city it would have
been too horrible to imagine." (C. M. Y.).

Happily, there were lighter sides to the picture. The
soldiers wished to give a presentation processional
umbrella to the two doctors. .(" The umbrella of him
who saves ten thousand lives.") The question which
presented itself to the two doctors' minds was what
they were going to do with the gift, since they were not
likely to be living together much longer, and " the half
of an umbrella " is only desirable under certain circum-
stances. Someone made the brilliant suggestion that it
should be sent to the Mission House in London.

Russell was now eighteen months old and picking up
quite a considerable vocabulary mainly Chinese. His
father gives an account of one incident in the youngster's
training which revealed limitations even to Sister Char-
lotte's varied experience in religious instruction. " The
other night his mother began to teach him a prayer :
' Now I lay me down to sleep.' He said it after her quite
well. Next day Charlotte slipped into the house from
the hospital, where she had been working, to look at
him, and found the amah and the house-boy in fits of
laughter. There was Russell kneeling at a chair with a
cat, trying to teach pussy to pray. We concluded that it

266 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

would be better to wait a while before going any further
with his religious instruction."

When it became known that Young and Robertson
were going to the coast, the presentations began to pour
in, and many were the feasts to which they had to invite
the donors, to say nothing of those given them by the
authorities. These latter showed their appreciation of
the doctors' services by offering a splendid site for the
building of a new hospital. On this site the Jenkins-
Robertson Memorial Hospital stands to-day. What gave
the doctors even greater joy was that the preaching of
the Gospel was listened to as never before in the city,
and in most audiences some ex-patient from amongst the
wounded soldiery was to be seen. It used to be a delight
to those who loved and honoured the two doctors to
see their joy at this response to the Christian message
as preached by men like Mr. Shorrock, Mr. Chou and
others Chinese and foreigners and by the doctors them-
selves when they could get a spare hour. In Young's
case there was only one alloy. Time which should have
been given to the complete rest of convalescence he had
to spend struggling with the hospital accounts, which
during the arduous preceding months had been left
untouched.

The authorities insisted on paying the doctors' ex-
penses to the coast, though they were evidently puzzled
that the latter insisted on this being reckoned in the
Mission accounts. One of the most pathetic of these
presentations came from the Manchus whom they had
been able to rescue or help in various ways. The few
Manchu survivors still left in the district were allowed
to slip quietly back to the city, though their old quarter
was now a heap of ruins.

And so the time passed until the Youngs (accompanied

THE DRAMATIC YEAR 267

by the Shorrocks) were ready to go to the coast. Robert-
son was to follow after a month, in which he would put
the new Peking medical in touch with things.

The worst was over now and the fighting had ceased.
They had had five hospitals under their care, of which
one had been run in the name of the Shensi Red Cross
Society, a body hastily organized by the authorities,
partly to give the city " face " after the awful massacres
of October and partly to copy the activities of republics
in the Western world. This Red Cross hospital now took
over a number of the patients whom the Mission hospital
could not accommodate, and as the Red Cross buildings
grew, the other three temporary hospitals were closed.

It had been a great chapter in the lives of the little
group the Youngs, the Shorrocks and Cecil Robertson
who had seen it through, and the farewell scene at
the easternmost gate brought back to them months
crowded with wonderful memories. 1

As Cecil Robertson rode back to the city, to the hospital
where he was to work so bravely and so joyously until
his death, the world wore a strangely solemn aspect.
For him the four people who had left were great souls ;
he had been with them in hours when the deepest things
in life are open in man's sight, and he had found their
nature stand that test. Whatever the future might hold
it was scarcely likely that they five would ever again
stand in a similar peril and a similar intimacy. God
willing, they would all toil in that Sianfu plain again,
but never quite in the same way. For the colleague
whose life, under God, he had saved, Cecil Robertson's
heart held a very special niche. He himself was loved
1 See Introductory chapter.

268 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

by Andrew Young as was no other colleague on the
mission field in Congo or in China. These things are not
wholly in our keeping. We ' ' love the brethren ' ' honestly,
but the love through which the soul of Jonathan clave
unto the soul of David is a gift given specially to us of
God and a gift which, if wise, we accept without question
and without reserve.

The dramatic year was over. In various places and
in various ways these five turned to walk earth's quieter
ways, and in these also to seek the leading of God.

CHAPTER XII

The Growth of a Soul

FEOM the chronicle of the outer activities of a life so
full, passed amidst scenes so varied and bizarre, one
passes as best one can, with quietness and reverence,
into the inner shrine. It is with a feeling of unworthi-
ness and of awe that the average man, sensible of his
unaccustomedness to holy places, ventures to lift the
curtain which hangs at the door of the tabernacle. Yet
no life of Andrew Young could be a balanced picture
which failed here, for though to depict him as a
religious man only, ignoring his interest in ordinary
human concerns, would be to misinterpret the man ;
to do less than justice to his religious life is to miss his
meaning.

In preceding chapters the religious side of his
nature has of necessity . been referred to in passing,
since it crops out in every letter he writes, but it
has not been insisted upon. We turn now to attempt
some understanding of this the deepest part of the
man.

Ever since his Langholm boyhood the Kingdom of
God, as a grain of mustard-seed, had been growing into
his life, until by the time of the China Revolution it
had become a tree with branches spread wide and
hospitable to shelter the storm-driven. Andrew Young's

269

270 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

religion had two prominent features, in virtue of which
it made him the force he was : it had power to adapt
and it had power to transform.

On Langholm Bridge he not only told his boyhood's
friend of the committal of his soul to Christ Jesus as
Lord, but added immediately that he saw no reason
why this should interfere with two boys' friendship.
This is all the more interesting because he himself hardly
recognized its value and its significance. The Puritan
tradition, the old Covenanting associations, if uncritically
followed, might have led him to the " come ye out from
amongst them and be ye separate" attitude. But he
escaped being swayed by the sentiment of a school. He
was so taught by his Lord that he passed through a
world in which there was much to distress him, yet
always he refrained from drawing the hem of his garment
aside. He was delivered from the uncharity that drives
the sinner further into the slough ; he escaped censorious-
ness that snare of the religious which must hugely
please the enemy of souls. With Dutch traders and
Belgian officials, with Congo carriers, chiefs and witch-
doctors, with ship's officers and medical students, with
Chinese officials and compradores, with the hundred-
and-one types which passed as patients into his
hospital wards, he mixed freely, and though he might
be shy he was never severe; when he was shocked
he never showed it for the showing's sake. He could
so adapt himself that whilst men knew him to be
religious they also knew him to be a man, and one most
brotherly.

There was never any lowering of the standard ; but
the standard floated over a refuge into which men might
flee, not over a redoubt from which they were to be
thrust. They were admitted, and often upon admittance

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL 271

they were transformed. To be in Andrew Young's
company intimately for any length of time was inevitably
to be influenced ; the seed in the soil affected that which
surrounded it ; much of the earthiness was drawn into
the seed's life and turned into the stem and leaf and
flower which later appeared above the soil. But to do
this, the seed had to bear the bruising and the being
crowded upon by the closely packed soil. The outer
sheath of the seed had to suffer much in its life-giving
process.

Tracing his life from the happy days in Langholm,
when he had glorious tramps over the hills, when he
held his own easily in classroom and playground,
or devoured Ballantyne and Scott whilst perched
in the trees of Scholars' Field, to the days that
followed the Chinese Revolution, one sees this
principle steadily at work always the man being
packed into the press of humanity, where he adapted
himself, gradually transforming that which thronged
him.

The Congo life grew more and more strenuous, till at
the end it threatened to bury him hopelessly. The years
of medical study, crowded with work though they might
be, were years of renewal. In them the strain of imme-
diate responsibility for large organized work was removed.
But with the China experience this freedom was lost.
With one or two brief respites at Kuling and Huai Yuan,
and the long wedding trip by houseboat a happy golden
interval of freedom which one rejoices to have in this
burdened narrative it was an incessant increase of re-
sponsibility and toil. Yet as the clouds about the life
increased the flame which lit its inner shrine burned
all the more brightly. In a lesser nature its glow
might have been dimmed or quenched ; with Andrew

272 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

Young self-forgetfulness was as a precious oil which
fed this lovely radiance. He was always so careful
for others, always so forgetful of himself, and as a
result the essential Self of the man grew ever more
lovely. For this man's Master had early delivered to
him the secret of entrance into a garden walled
around.

There is at a certain point of a street in the heart
of banking London an archway, diving through
which the curious person or the busy merchant may
pass into a lovely enclosure where trees give shelter
to London sparrows, where the grass is soft to the
feet and grateful to the eye, whilst the feverish traffic
of London rolls by unheard, and the telephone and
telegraph, the rush and the strain are forgotten. A
man is in the heart of London yet he is at peace.
Andrew Young seldom had time to retreat to the
mountains ; at certain seasons he could not for
days on end retreat to his own room; in the field
hospitals of West Shensi, or in his own crowded quar-
ters at the hospital, privacy was almost impossible ;
yet as his boyhood's friend had said, " a dreamy
absent-minded look came upon him," and one knew
that he had escaped standing in a hospital ward,
crouching in a fugitive's cave, or waiting in an inn
yard he had escaped into a secret garden and he was
at peace.

In recording the outstanding events of his life during
the years which follow his leaving the Gate at Sianfu, 1
this religious motive will be frankly the guiding thread.
It had been at work all through his experience since his
decision to be a missionary, but only now do we use it
as an interpretative clue. To see it so used during one
1 See Introductory chapter.

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL 273

period will best enable us to realize it as the main motive
throughout the life.

The Youngs, unfortunately for them, reached London
at the time when the demand for deputation speakers on
Missionary Society platforms was at its height, and
considering the story they had to tell it is not surprising
that there were many requests for their services. He is
a wise missionary who reaches England after the May
meetings, so as to make sure of a quiet time before the
activities of " deputation work " begin in October.
Andrew Young was in Scotland (looking forward to some
real holiday after this deputation season should close in
the coming June) when the cable brought word of a
double loss, an irreparable loss, in Sianfu. Stanley
Jenkins and Cecil Robertson had both gone down with
typhus. In ten days Robertson was dead, whilst
Jenkins, after passing safely through the fever and
showing slow signs of recovery for several days, finally
collapsed owing to the weak state of his heart. Young
immediately volunteered to return, though he was warned
by a specialist in London that he must not stay out
longer than two years, so worn was he. Without even
giving himself the rest that a sea voyage would have
provided, he came as quickly as he could by Siberia to
China.

On April llth he was at Hanover. Passing through
Rotterdam brought back old Congo memories, since it
was from Rotterdam that he had twice sailed for that
country. Even on this Siberian trip his hastily written
train letters are full of shrewd observation and comment.
The man could not help but see clearly and record
accurately. There is one human cry from a letter sent

S

274 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

from Marinsk : "It seems hardly possible that it is only
a week since I bade you good-bye at Liverpool Street ;
it seems more like an age." And this is echoed later
when his wife and child were nearing China : "It seems
such an age since I saw them. The past three months
seem like three years. What a lot has happened in it.
Won't it be good to have Charlotte and Russell again !
It seems almost too good to be true." Never before had
he so felt the loneliness of the human spirit. The men
with whom he had hoped to work were dead ; he had
no one who could explain to him how their plans had
been maturing, for Dr. Scollay, who had reached Sianfu
but shortly before their death, with no knowledge of
local conditions, had no means of passing on their message.
Before leaving the railway, whilst still at the Chengchow
junction, he had caught up Mr. Shorrock, another man
returning before he was physically fit, and they travelled
up together. Two hours west of the railway they met
Mrs. Jenkins on her way to England, and Miss Becking-
sale, who was accompanying her to the railway. Young
wrote : " Mrs. Jenkins keeps up wonderfully well and is
very brave and trustful, but she must sometimes feel
almost overwhelmed as the consciousness of her terrible
loss comes over her."

The first Sunday on the road they stayed quietly in
their Chinese inn. They held a couple of services with
their own house-boys and " one or two others who came
along". It was the first time since leaving London that
Young had had any real rest from travel, or a quiet time
for worship in company with others in a language he
understood, and it was a Sabbath for him in every
sense.

It was already so hot at the beginning of May that
they slept in the open yard instead of the stifling and

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL 275

unsavoury rooms of the inns along the road. And one
realizes how hard it was upon them both to be returning
to Shensi after a far too short respite with the trying
summer facing them, and both of them separated from
their families.

Reaching the border town, Tungkwan, where they
entered Shensi, they found that the officials of their own
province had sent an escort to welcome them. A little
farther west their old friend Mr. Shih, he who had come
to the rescue in the northern hills, 1 met them from the
provincial foreign office.

By the fourteenth of May they were in Sianfu, just
a month after Young's leaving England. The province
was recovering from the effects of the revolution. The
crops were flourishing, the prices of food had returned
almost to pre-revolution rates, the people seemed quiet
and peaceful. A mile from the city Young was met by
a number of soldiers who had been permanently disabled
during the righting of 1911 and 1912, and who were now
inmates of a kind of Chelsea hospital, 2 which housed a
hundred and twenty pensioners. Of these all who could
hobble had joined the group coming out to welcome
him. It was a pathetic sight. " They had been fear-
fully upset by the death of Dr. Robertson, and were glad
to see me back again. I visited the place after I got into
the city and found quite a number of old friends among
the soldiers."

He stayed a week-end in the Suburb, and on the Sunday
Dr. Scollay came out from the hospital to meet him.
" He is an awfully nice little chap and has done splendidly
in very difficult circumstances indeed."

1 See Chapter X.

2 This " Chelsea hospital " was the outcome of representations made
to the authorities by Robertson and Young in 1912.

276 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

He went to San Yuan to get some of his kit from the
Zenana House in which they had lodged whilst building
the new hospital. Apropos this trip he adds : " Isn't
it a strange thing that for all the time we have been in
China we have never yet lived in our own home ? "
There is a wealth of missionary history behind such a
sentence as this.

The work awaiting him immediately upon his return
was very heavy. " I had over a hundred out-patients
on Friday, and yesterday I was at work operating nearly
all day. We simply cannot take in more." Spiritually,
however, he found encouragement. " There is a good
deal of keenness amongst the patients to hear the Gospel."
He also had the comfort of knowing that medical aid was
approaching : " We hear that Dr. Charter, Mr. Watson,
and Mr. Fairburn are only two days away now and will
be here by Tuesday." These three men had also travelled
at full speed, leaving their families to follow later. Mr.
Fairburn was the B.M.S. architect who had come to
build the new Sianfu hospital, He had previously built
the Tai Yuan hospital, and had, whilst there, married
Dr. Paula Maier of the Women's Hospital. In the days
which were approaching the presence of Mrs. Fairburn
in Sianfu was of the utmost importance.

The shadows were gathering thickly. In June there
came the bewildering blow of Miss Beckingsale's death.
She had been compelled to consult the doctor owing to
severe pain, and he found that she had a cyst or tumour
which must have been of a year's growth. The necessary
operation was long and difficult and the outlook un-
favourable for recovery. A second operation became
necessary four days later, and on the fifth day she passed
away. Young's own word for this loss was " bewilder-
ing". She had always been so strong and calm and

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL 277

kindly. She was essentially both a leader and a " stand-
by". The loss to the Mission, following so rapidly upon
that of Jenkins and Robertson, seemed indeed over-
whelming.

The news announcing this loss was scarcely written
when Dr. Charter went down with typhus. Dr. Scollay
was detained at San Yuan owing to a confinement case,
so that Young was faced with this new burden in addition
to the general hospital work. Fairburn and I acted as
nurses as well as we were able, Fairburn taking day
duty and I the night. It was in those long night watches
that I came so near to Andrew Young ; it was then that
I realized how deep and intimate was the communion
which this man held hourly with his Lord, a communion
which alone could explain the untiring patience and
the gentleness of a strong nature, the unfailing
acquiescence in decrees of providence so inscrutable that
most men would have greeted them with rebellion.
Prayer was almost natural breathing to Andrew Young,
though his familiarity with it did not prevent his agonizing
in prayer at certain seasons. The faith that God doeth
all things well was ingrained in him, but he had at times
to go through severe mental and spiritual discipline
before he could reconcile with his persisting faith the
temporary suffering and evil which lay before his eyes.
His was not the easy acceptance of the fatalist. His
faith was in a personal God whose name was Love ; he
could not rest in a facile acquiescence in the Will of an
Omnipotent. For him the All-Great was the All-Loving
too, and through the thunder he listened for the human
voice, which says :

" heart I made, a heart beats here ! "
There was one evening when certain complications
appeared in Charter's case and the dread of an added

278 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

anxiety fell almost visibly upon the doctor's face. Once
at least, if memory serves me rightly, the words of the
thought which lurked in our hearts did fall from his lips :
" If Charter goes too ! " And then one night Young
was ill. He says nothing of this in his own letters. He
had the aching head, the weariness, the high temperature
that might well have denoted typhus. Until his amateur
nurse had managed to learn how to do certain things for
the patient Young had never had a long sleep, and he was
worn out. Perhaps that was why he submitted so
easily, almost thankfully, to being bullied by this same
amateur. The latter at any rate got him to bed and
went through the earlier nursing ritual for a typhus case,
leaving him somewhat more comfortable, obediently
promising to try to sleep, and ending on a note of con-
trition and anxiety, " and I hope that in the morning I
shall be all right and shall not give you any trouble."
These italicized words represent the man so thoroughly.
I think the idea that he might be in any danger never
troubled him God directed and that sufficed but the
courteous gentleman that was always evident in Andrew
Young shrank from allowing others to do offices for him
which he would have performed cheerfully, however
menial they might be, for the unsightliest wastrel from
the beggar caves. A long rest in the morning and he was
all right. It had been a false alarm due to utter ex-
haustion, and he awoke serene and quietly confident.

How much he taught one of prayer in those daj^s, of
the hidden delights found in quiet by-ways of the
Scriptures which were stored in his mind for he had
little time to read as well as of the great majestic Pauline
doctrines in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians.
And one saw the growth of a soul going on before one's
eyes ; the adaptation to its environment and the

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL 279

transforming of it; the struggle which is in growth. There
was constant challenge to faith in those days : the need
of Stanley Jenkins, Jennie Beckingsale, and Cecil Robert-
son, which asserted itself time and time again, the
question whether Charter's strength would stand the
strain which the fever put upon it, the human cry as to
why his own home should be only a succession of gather-
ings broken by separations such as he was then enduring.
Such challenges had to be faced and fought if so be the
man, constituted as he was, was to grow in grace and in
knowledge of his Lord and Saviour.

Perhaps to him the hardest challenge of all, and the
most constant in appearance, was found in the slow rate
of Gospel appreciation by its hearers, both Christian and
non-Christian. Why were they so slow to accept the
Truth which to him was so glorious, so self-evident ?
And having accepted it why were they so languid in
entering more deeply into its riches ? Yet even here
faith worked out in patience, and patience went on with
her perfect work in fashioning the stature of this man's
soul.

Yet there escaped one poignant cry which from one so
strong and so reserved spoke volumes. In the first letter
which he found time to write after Charter was safely
past the crisis, and at a time when Young was living by
himself again, there is a postscript which is as a cry
escaping from a repressed heart that for a moment must
find utterance : " Keep praying hard for us. The work
is hard and the strain great."

Dear, brave, lonely warrior of Jesus Christ, verily the
strain was great !

News came that a second revolution had begun in the

280 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

South ; this time against Yuan Sbih-k'ai's dictatorship.
It would probably mean new trouble for Shensi, and
Young anticipated new demands being made upon the
hospital. The poor province which had begun to grow
a new skin over its old wounds might have to bleed
afresh. Yet he adds : " It is a comfort to know that
God directs."

In the first week of August the two of us got away to
Kuling. We were both run down, and one of us had no
scruples about using a sedan chair. And the oppor-
tunity of inducing Andrew Young to travel in comfort
for once was too good to be lost. And the good, good
road did its healing work. Perhaps he was not the
only gipsy on that trip. It was the hottest time of the
year, but we had a head wind, and until almost the end
of the trip escaped the rains. By the end of it we were
able to tramp ten miles. To have left responsibility
behind for a short season was healing in itself, and the
air of the Honan mountains, the being carried by a
quarrelsome yet boyish crowd of chattering chairmen,
and the kindness of our Chinese house-boy did the rest.
Is there anywhere a better and a more faithful helper
than a Chinese " boy," the boy who has grown used to
you, who looks upon himself as " ih chia jen chia " (one
of the family) ? He takes charge of you entirely, receives
imperturbably your feeble suggestions, and proceeds
to carry out his own ideas which are generally far
better than yours with the utmost sang-froid and good
temper.

Having made arrangements at Kuling, Young hurried
down to Shanghai to meet his wife and Russell.

Between. Kuling and Shanghai the steamer on which he
travelled had to run the gauntlet of the attack upon the
forts commanding Nanking. "When we were still some

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL 281

miles above Nanking we could see occasional puffs of
white smoke from the surrounding hills which told that
there was some cannonading proceeding. . . . The
Southern or rebel army is inside the city and the govern-
ment troops hold all the commanding positions outside,
including Tiger Hill and Purple Mountain, on both of
which they have batteries posted. A rebel battery was
being shelled, as we passed, by two warships five miles
down river. For quite a little while we were right in the
line of fire, and the shells must have gone over our heads.
But out of a dozen or so which were fired while we were
passing not more than one struck even the hill as far as
we could see. That one, however, pitched right into the
fort, and must have done considerable damage." As
stated previously, if there was any trouble to be met
with on the road Young was sure to run into it.
Happily, he generally came out of it without permanent
hurt.

The family, united again, came from Shanghai on to
Kuling. But at Ruling, where he had hoped to be built
up in health for the winter's work, Young found little
rest. There was a scourge of dysentery. Four little
foreign children died in August and September, whilst
other cases occurred later. Russell went down with it,
and was reduced to a shadow. And such a weary, weary,
little shadow. If Young had a fault it was that he wore
himself out unnecessarily over his patients : he could
not or would not put them out of his mind when not
definitely working for them. He " carried them with
him". If this was the case generally it can be imagined
that it was all the more so when his little son was thus
suffering. He gave himself no rest, and by the end of
September he was tired out. Russell's long convalescence
detained them till the 22nd of October. On their way

282 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

back to Shensi they joined a number of missionaries
coming up from the railway to Sianfu. Travelling with
a large party when inn accommodation is limited is apt
to make some demands on the patience, but in such
circumstances the Youngs shone. Nothing was a trouble,
and the humorous side of any contretemps always struck
them first. Andrew used to ride ahead and secure the
rooms a very necessary precaution when the roads
were busy. By the time the party arrived, a room or
two would be swept, and hot water ready. The presence
of such a pair of easily satisfied travellers as the Youngs,
who were ready to take whatever the road offered and
make the best of it, would help any caravan along.

By December the wearisome delays in hospital building
commenced. The Republican leaders, Chang Feng-hui
and his colleagues, had granted an excellent site, but
their power was waning before the increased pressure
exerted by Yuan Shih-k'ai's agents from Peking. An
enormous influx of new troops directed from Peking
made it impossible to hold brick and lumber contractors
to their terms. Bricks ready for the hospital were com-
mandeered to build hastily run-up barracks, whilst cart
mules were either taken by the military for their own
purposes or were hurriedly removed by their owners to
be hidden in the foothills. Thus delivery of material
was reduced to a thin trickle at a time when it should
have been a steady stream.

Then came White Wolf. This bandit chief's activities
were on so large a scale that his fame crept into the
European press. Yet his regular followers probably at
no time numbered more than a thousand men. On
passing through mountain districts he would gather a
loose number of auxiliaries from amongst the half-wild
villagers, who would take a part in his raids on the plains,

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL 283

returning to their own fastnesses with their share of
the booty, but not joining his permanent band. Like
so many of these Chinese Robin Hoods, White Wolf had
his grievance against the authorities, having been driven
into outlawry by a failure of justice. An army of forty
thousand men (with artillery and three scouting aero-
planes) was sent into the province by the Peking Govern-
ment, which gladly seized the opportunity to introduce an
overwhelming force and so overawe the Republicans. Yet
when confronted with White Wolf's thousand men this
army of forty thousand was useless. The former, know-
ing that their lives were at stake, fought with courage and
with brains. The " army " only stood one volley near
Hu Hsien, twenty-four miles from Sianfu after which
they fled precipitately to the latter city, whilst White
Wolf's band retreated at their leisure into the hills and
made their way into Honan. But the same " army," which
had ignominiously fled before the bandits, entered Sianfu,
where other professional soldiers were in charge, without
difficulty. Upon their entrance Governor Chang Feng-
hui, who had done good work for Shensi, was " invited "
to Peking and a pension, and was considered fortunate
in that the victorious Yuan Shih-k'ai demanded no more.
He passed quietly from the public stage and lived un-
ostentatiously in Peking until the Pharaoh of that day
passed away. The new Governor Lu Chien-chang was
an opium sot who had served as a Chinese Judge Jeffreys
in courts of inquiry in Peking, and being a tool too
unscrupulous to raise difficulties, was sent to Shensi,
which was still far too republican in sentiment. His
severity and corruption in the end defeated the Peking
purpose. So widespread became the discontent that an
ex-bandit chief named Ch'en, who had become a military
leader, headed a revolt, and was able to enlist sufficient

284 ANDREW YOUNG OP SHENSI

followers to defeat Lu's forces and to instal himself as
military governor of the province, a position he main-
tained for four years. Shensi relapsed once more into
independence of Peking, but maintained a close relation
with the Canton Government. This state of things con-
tinued until the army supported by Feng Yu-hsiang's
troops arrived to hold the province for the central
government.

In the beginning of 1914, however, the danger of strife
in the province was avoided, and the hospital in Sianfu
being able to resume its normal course, Young's life went
on much in the way described in chapter seven. A little
daughter, Hannah, was born, and he became her slave.
" You never saw two such lovers as Hannah and he "
(C.M.Y.). But the time which he was able to spend
in his own home was all too short and broken. The
foreign side of the work made increasing demands upon
his strength. At any time he might be called upon to
ride to some town thirty, sixty, or even a hundred miles
away, spend a day or two there and then race back to
meet the accumulation of work which was awaiting his
return, and perhaps the results of some friction which
had occurred between members of the staff. He had
gone on one occasion to Feng-hsiang, a city a hundred
miles west from Sianfu, in order to help a C.I.M. mis-
sionary whose situation was grave. Whilst there he
received a telegram saying that his little son Russell
was dangerously ill. As soon as it was safe to leave
his patient he got away from Feng-hsiang, starting from
that city at one o'clock. He travelled the so-called
roads for sixty miles in a Chinese springless cart, until
nine o'clock at night. After three hours' rest he started
again and went until half-past seven in the morning.
After a meal he mounted a mule at half-past eight and

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL 285

rode until half-past two, when he reached a Swedish
mission station, where his own horse, sent on from the
hospital, was awaiting him. After a hurried lunch he
started for Sianfu, reaching its west suburb at ten,
though he still had a two hours' ride round the city to
the east suburb (where his child was), reaching it at
midnight. So that he did the hundred miles between
Feng-hsiang and Sianfu in thirty-three hours.

A month later he had to do the journey again to see
the same patient.

One part of his foreign work which was its own reward
was the care of the babies, whom he dearly loved, and he
rode in all directions gladly to attend to them. " Andrew
certainly does fuss over these new babies. It seems to
me sometimes that he likes each one better than the
last." (C.M.Y.).

The war meant the withdrawal of some of the
Society's medical men from China, either for help with
the Chinese Labour Corps or general R.A.M.C. work.
(All hope of reinforcements was, of course, over until
after the war.)

Late in 1915 he lost his mother. It is with a shock
that one picks up the letter beginning " Dear Father "
instead of the " Dear Father and Mother " which had
been the familiar opening for twenty-five years. She
had been so much to him all his life. She had under-
stood him. He had always known that to her he could
go for consolation ; he could go with his confidences ;
he could go in his perplexities, knowing that he would
never come empty away. That she should see much of
his children was one of his hopes. Religious faith never
with him dulled the edge of human affection, and his
mother's death left its mark upon him.

The next trial came in July, 1916, with the death of a

286 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

little daughter of his colleagues, the Mudds. Mary Mudd
when born was found to be suffering from spina bifida.
He could do nothing for her, and the little life flickered
out in a fortnight. " I had seldom known him so cut up
about anything as he was by this," says Mrs. Young.

A still harder and far more prolonged trial was to
follow, yet one which went far, very far, in developing
in his nature certain qualities, already unusually accentu-
ated, until the man appeared, in his last years, in the
eyes of Chinese and foreigners alike, to be compassion
personified. The figure which he inevitably brings to
mind .is that of " The Friend of Little Children," holding
in his arms some tiny, suffering child, who in the very
act of being thus cradled was blessed. Andrew Young
had always loved the little babies; he had always had
a special corner in his heart for the suffering little ones.
He and his wife were now, during three years of loving
care care which was an agony and a benediction to
show to their Chinese neighbours the value which the
Saviour places on lives which can never be " counted as
a prize " in the world's reckonings, but which come into
this same world with their own mission ; to break up
that hardening crust of utilitarian values beneath which
our best selves were slowly stifled, and to bring us into
the free air where God's thoughts renew our life. The
little fingers whose grasp is too weak to cling to life
here are yet able to draw out our hearts' tendrils till
these are linked firmly to God and goodness.

George Young, their third child, was born a week later
than Mary Mudd, and proved to be suffering from the
same deformity, but in this case life lasted for three years.
In reply to a cable to America for information as to
treatment, Young was advised to take the child over
there, and by mid-September he had handed over the

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL 287

hospital work to Dr. Scollay and left for Boston;
On the land journey both Russell and Hannah nearly
died of dysentery, but picked up on the Pacific voyage.

The specialist whose aid they sought, and whose fame
had drawn them from Sianfu to Boston, was Dr. Harvey
Gushing. All that he could do for them he did, but though
he operated upon the little child three times, he could
do little more than afford temporary relief. In America
Young put in all his spare time at hospital work and
lectures, finding that unrestrained and hearty welcome
to all the facilities which their schools can offer for
which American colleges are justly famed. At Johns
Hopkins for they moved later from Boston to Balti-
moreand at Boston it was the same. But the anxiety
about George was wearing him down, and the desire to
get back to Sianfu was always at the back of his mind.
Things there were not going too well. The Chinese
staff, who knew Young and his ways, did not easily
accommodate themselves to his successor.

In June, 1917, he lost his father, but could not grudge
the old man's going to the Home where his thoughts
had increasingly dwelt since his wife's death. "How
thoroughly he will feel at home," was Andrew's comment.
They left America in September, 1917, but by the time
they reached Hwai Yuen in Anhui they feared the cold
journey up to Sianfu with George. So very reluctantly
Mrs. Young saw her husband go up country alone, whilst
she stayed with the children in company with her sisters.
On the road Young met a youth whose story is told
elsewhere 1 and whom we called " The Treasure." He
was at this time a lithographer in the Commercial Press
at Shanghai, and was going up to Sianfu to be married.
He made a welcome companion, doubly so in the event
* " In China Now," by J. C. Keyte, chapter V.

288 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

which followed. " We got off early from the inn on
Wednesday and made thirty-seven miles. Just before
we got in we were stopped by robbers armed with modern
magazine rifles. They ordered us to get down off the
cart and deliver up to the tune of three hundred or five
hundred dollars, or they would shoot. We told them we
did not carry any money except road expenses, a few
dollars being all we had, and invited them to look through
our belongings if they wanted to do so. They evidently
did not think it worth while, however, and motioned us
to pass on. 1 A cart going along with us they robbed of
money and goods to the tune of a hundred dollars or
more. We were thankful to get off so lightly. I have
never been stopped by robbers before in all my travels, so
it was a new experience. The rest of the journey was
uneventful."

He reached Sianfu in the middle of November, 1917,
this time taking up the work not in the old makeshift
Chinese buildings he had known since 1905, but in the
new foreign-built Jenkins-Robertson Memorial Hospital.
It was the Modern Missionary Hospital to which he
returned.

Since the time when he left England for China in the
spring of 1918, there had been four years of almost in-
cessant toil and anxiety, varied only by travel under
trying conditions and at forced speed. Again and again
the warning which fatigue should have given him was
ignored, its inhibitions kept at bay by the reinforcements
of religious devotion and a steel-like will. But in March,
1918, he had a complete collapse, and had to put down

1 This was before bandits had taken to the lucrative practice of
kidnapping foreigners in order to hold them up to ransom.

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL 289

everything and leave for Hwai Yuen. With no male
doctor in the city, Mrs. Fairburn, the doctor in charge
of the women's wards of the Memorial Hospital, became
responsible for any medical cases that might occur
amongst the foreign community. By this time also
fighting had broken out again between the troops of the
de facto provincial government on the one hand, and those
forces who refused to recognise Sianfu's authority on
the other. As a consequence the men's wards of the
hospital were once more filled with wounded soldiers.
Under such circumstances Mrs. Fairburn took the only
sensible and humanitarian course open to her : she threw
off the trammels of Chinese etiquette and proceeded to
treat the wounded as a male doctor would have done.
And the soldiers were as obedient to her as children
would have been. With an imposing presence, a love
of her profession, powers of physical endurance that
allowed her to work for long periods without rest, and
with a big heart, this woman doctor held the fort.

If in those days Andrew Young had grown irritable,
moody, critical of others working at less pressure than
himself, there would have been little to surprise those
who know by experience something of the limitations
of human endurance. To them the physical strain alone
would have explained such a development. But those
years were one steady growth in grace. He grew, if
possible, more thoughtful for others, more earnest to
show forth Christian character, whether in the prosaic
daily programme or in the sudden calls so frequently
made upon him, calls that meant discomfort, hardship,
and endless modification and alteration of plan. Some
of us can go through with a difficult task provided that,

T

290 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

once its outlines are clear, we are allowed to drive straight
ahead. His was the far more trying task of constantly
fitting into fresh scenes, using new helpers, adapting
himself to the altered circumstances brought about by
political disturbances, by fresh demands on the part
of a hospital staff, or by the breakdown, the withdrawal,
or the death of colleagues. The thoughtful face grew
more and more finely drawn, the wiry frame became
thinner and thinner, eye and hand at times would scarcely
obey the driving will ; yet the sweetness of temper never
wavered, the inner serenity of spirit more and more
informed the whole bearing, temper, and habit of the
man. Such a serenity was only reached at the cost of
stem struggle. Saintship is not attained by following
the line of least resistance. The fellowship in prayer
for which one fled to Andrew Young, as a homing bird
flies to shelter before the coming storm, had not been
learned with ease. " Tell the Christians in Langholm
we stand very much in need of earnest, persistent, be-
lieving prayer. Our greatest need here is fellow-workers
both at home and on the field, who know how to pray
not an occasional mentioning of the work in prayer, but
the getting of such work upon one's heart as a personal
pressing need."

" Tell the Christians in Langholm to pray " was as a
refrain in his thoughts. In every letter there comes the
reiterated " Pray that. ..." And Andrew Young was
the last man to seek from others a spiritual effort in
which he himself was doing less than his utmost.

And to those who knew him well and lived with him
in intimacy it was clear that the secret of his loveliness
in character lay in the strenuousness of his spiritual life.
Those who heard that appeal of his " Pray that . . . ."
and attempted to walk with him in fellowship found

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL 291

that the beauty of the soul which so stamped him was
won in that " place apart " to which he seemed able to
withdraw almost at will. Very soon one learned of
that secret garden where his soul wandered. At morning,
and at noontide, and at evening, and often in the watches
of the night, did Andrew Young have fellowship with
his Lord. For him the language of the Canticles was as
a natural expression, utterly unforced : " I was asleep,
but my heart waked : it is the voice of my beloved that
knocketh." North and south winds might blow upon
that secret garden, but always they left it carrying spices
as they passed from happy haunts where the Beloved
fed His flock among the lilies. Samuel Rutherford and
the singer of the Song of Songs used a language which
was Andrew Young's habitual tongue. And if you were
humble-hearted you could hear through him messages
from the far-off country, you could get glimpses into
the shy recesses of that secret garden. Of the depth of
the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God
which he had plumbed I cannot speak; he sounded
depths beyond my experience, but at least I had wit
enough, in our days of comradeship, to know where real
banquets were spread, and to catch some of the crumbs
that fell.

Often in days when we lived in the same street or under
the same roof I would slip away to him in the evenings or
lure him over to my quarters. He knew why the weaker
brother sought him out. His kind, good eyes would
smile whimsically as he said : " Well, have you come for
' tao-kao ' ? " There are other Mandarin expressions for
" prayer," but " tao-kao " was the one we used. I think
he was often puzzled over my theological limitations,
just as he was puzzled that God's children, with such
rich treasures of grace and fellowship open to them,

292 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

should be so languid, so slow, so erratic in their appro-
priations ; but any difference of outlook upon particular
doctrines, any regret at one's slow development in the
things of the spirit, were forgotten when he led one into
the Presence. When all was said and done the man was
more than his work. Great as was the gratitude which
the Chinese soldiery felt for Andrew Young and Cecil
Robertson, I think that in both cases it was the saint
that lingered in the memory as much as the physician,
In the last analysis their greatest contribution to the
Shensi province was that they brought to it a living
interpretation of Jesus Christ.

We called him " Saint Andrew," and since his Chinese
name was " Jung " l which can be translated " glorjV
we, his foreign colleagues, also called him " Mister Glory
Tai-fu, " (doctor), for he carried the Promise on his brow ;
the Glory so nearly broke through. I think that the
question which often puzzled him was why the Glory
did not quite break through ; why the church of Jesus
was not even now arrayed in white robes ; why we knew
so little of the joy which was in Christ; a joy which to
this servant of Jesus was so vivid, so radiant, that no
other could ever take the heart captive.

Well, he has found the answer now. No shade of the
old bewilderment can cloud again for him the Joy that
hath no ending.

" Wherefore if anywise from morn to morn
I can endure a weary faithfulness,
From minute unto minute calling low
On God, who once would answer, it may be
He hath a waking for me, and some surprise

i

In Peking pronounced nearly as " roong," but in Shensi as " yoong."
Hence its choice as a Chinese surname for a foreigner named " Young."
" Tai-fu " in North China is the usual title for a doctor of medicine.

THE GROWTH OF A SOUL 293

Shall from this prison set the captive free

And love from fears and from the flesh the soul. . Even now

This hour may set me in one place with God.

Jesus, spirit and spirit, soul and soul,

Jesus, I shall seek there, I shall find,

My love, my Master, find Thee, though I be

Least, as I know, of all men woman-born."

CHAPTER XIII
In the Jenkins^Robertson Memorial Hospital

THE new hospital which had been built in the face of so
many difficulties was ready for use by the year 1916.
It perpetuates the memories of Stanley Jenkins and Cecil
Robertson. To those of us who knew the Chinese mud
wall buildings of the first Shensi hospital it seemed a
wonderful building, though to the observer from Europe
or the Chinese coast it might appear simple enough.
Since Sianfu as a city was without such modern facilities
as gas, electric light, water or drainage, it followed that
in the hospital time and strength had still to be spent
upon work which never troubles workers in a hospital
at home. The wards were lit by oil lamps, whilst water
had to be carried in buckets to each of the rooms. Thus
in spite of the new buildings and new equipment as,
for example, the varnished bedstead and hospital bedding
which now replaced the old plank bed with the patient's
own quilt spread thereon it was one long struggle to
maintain the requisite standard of cleanliness.

Of the many developments and improvements which
the medical workers had planned, but few materialized in
the years 1917-1921, since they all had as their sine qua
non an adequate foreign staff. But year after year passed
and still the place was undermanned. For most of the
period there was but one foreign doctor. Even so,

294

IN THE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL 295

certain advance might have been feasible if the province
had been at peace and a regular course of hospital pro-
cedure possible. But the incessant struggles between
the contending forces which were ruining the province
inevitably affected hospital procedure. A convoy of
wounded might arrive at any time. Admitting the
wounded necessarily involved time spent in negotiations
with their commanders and in fighting against the easy
manners, the unpleasant habits and the indiscipline of
the wounded men's comrades. The inevitable bustle
and irregular procedure at such times were bad also for
the Chinese staff, who were apt to get an undue sense of
their own importance in the city's scheme of things.
The fighting, moreover, brought to the hospital a number
of wounded country folks, victims of the disorder around
them. All this in addition to the usual heavy demands
made upon the hospital meant that the doctor in charge
was continuously working under pressure. There was
never leisure in which to think out new methods or to
put into practice those which were already clear to the
mind. " When I get a little time I want to overhaul
such and such a system, and put it on better lines,"
represented the over-burdened man's plans for the
future. But the " little time " never came. There came
instead a call to an emergency case, or a new convoy of
wounded. The one thing which he was able to secure
was cleanliness, and to secure this much he had to draw
upon his last ounce of strength. The work was literally
overwhelming.

It was true that help was given by the young Chinese
assistant, trained in Hankow, but his help had definite
limitations. He was a very young "doctor", with no
previous experience, a very different worker from Dr. Li. 1

1 Cf. p.. 308.

296 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

The question of the Chinese Western-trained doctor
has its own special difficulties. For a variety of reasons,
which space here precludes our examining, the young
Chinese student upon taking his degree in a missionary
medical college is in a different position from the usual
foreign medical man as regards undertaking sole charge.
Even after his house-surgeon days are over, it is the
truest kindness to him to find him a post as assistant
to a long-experienced Chinese doctor and these latter
are still so few in number that one need not delay to
discuss this possibility or a foreign medical missionary.
The responsibility, moral and medical, thus placed upon
the medical missionary is very heavy ; the whole future
career of his Chinese colleague may be marred by his
failure in understanding, sympathy, firmness, or leader-
ship. To give his Chinese colleague the necessary " face "
and at the same time to lead him safely through the pit-
falls of his early days of practice requires great tact.
Let us admit frankly that certain medical missionaries
have not the necessary gifts. To some men the work
is comparatively easy ; to others it is a constant burden.
The problem, moreover, is not only that of dealing with
the particular Chinese colleagues. The Chinese assistant
medical is far more than an individual ; he is a trustee
of great professional traditions that have to be built
up in this country.

In computing the value of the work done by the
hospitals such as that in Sianfu we have to remember
that in addition to the immediate work accomplished
they are building up a tradition for the Chinese medical
profession of to-morrow. All the moral inspiration
which they can supply will be needed if that profession
is to reach the ethical standard to which it has attained
in the West.

IN THE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL 297

One missionary hospital in which I stayed when in
a country district of Central China already had as its
superintendent a Chinese Christian gentleman who was
of the same school as Andrew Young. He was acting
as a Missionary Society's representative, and his position
there points to the proper and natural method of gradual
devolution from the Mission to the Church.

The great mass of effective medical work in China
will, for some generations at least, for reasons already
detailed, 1 be done in small hospitals, which will be in
the hands of Western-trained Chinese medical men.
For such men during the next two or three decades,
the value, as an object lesson, of a hospital effectively
managed and informed through every part of it with
self-denial and human kindliness, is incalculable. A
certain number of such hospitals are needed, not only
for their own work's sake, but to serve as models. And
to be informed by the right spirit, they will be best
provided by the missionary societies. Ultimately they
might be taken over by the Chinese Church when that
Church has in her ranks well experienced Chinese doctors
who love their work, and who hold their professional
attainments as a trust from their Lord. Such men
would be the real successors to medical missionaries of
the Andrew Young type who seek not the prizes of this
world.

The new Sianfu hospital was a true child of its parent,
the old hospital, in one respect ; it was a home of romantic
adventure. Not all its praiseworthy efforts after stan-
dardization could rule out the element of the unusual
provided by the vagaries of Shensi politics, military
cabals and brigand ambitions. And just as in 1911-
1912 Shorrock, Young and Robertson had been prominent

1 See p. 163, et al

298 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

figures standing out in the welter of Shensi's internecine
strife, so in 1916-1918 the two former were again sought
out by contending leaders as men who could really
contribute to the peace and stability of the province.

When Governor Lu had by his cruelties and corrup-
tions driven the people to revolt, 1 the rebel leader Ch'en
proclaimed himself Governor of the province, acting
for what he grandiosely termed the true Republic of
China. (Needless to state he acted for himself.) In
the result the Shensi province was once more plunged
into civil war. And once again the Sianfu hospital
and this time the San Yuan one also was called upon
to undertake work for which treble its workers would
have been too few.

In February, 1919, we get a picture of strain which
makes one's heart ache. Mrs. Russell in San Yuan was
desperately ill, and Young was called upon to help.
San Yuan was at the mercy of an army which was righting
the one controlling the Sianfu, plain south of the river.
The leaders of this San Yuan army were no more in
favour of the Peking Central Government than was
Governor Ch'en himself. This, however, did not prevent
them refusing to acknowledge Ch'en. If one ex-bandit
may become a Provincial Governor why should they
hold their hands ? Batons might lie in their haversacks
also. This meant that the Missionary Society was in
the curious position of having Dr. Charter acting as
medical officer to a " rebel " army in the one city, whilst
Dr. Young served the " government " army in a similar
capacity in the other. In these circumstances to send
messengers or to go in person from San Yuan to Sianfu
was difficult enough, and there was always the fear that
having entered San Yuan, Dr. Young might be detained
1 See Chapter XII, page 283.

IN THE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL 299

there. He made his way, however, to the latter city,
and for a fortnight remained there whilst, in Sianfu, his
own youngest child, George, was dying.

No sooner had Young started for San Yuan than
heavy fighting recommenced, and the wounded began
to dribble into the hospital. His wife feared that little
George would not live till his father's return. "How-
ever, Mrs. Russell is making a fine recovery, and George
was here two weeks after Andrew got back to us. George
had been ill nearly all winter, and last Wednesday he
just quietly slipped away, without any suffering, for
which I was most thankful, as I had so feared that he
might have another convulsion. He had grown very
thin and weak, but I don't think he ever had any pain.
We had a Chinese service, led by Mr, Mudd, in the hospital
Chapel, which was nearly full of Chinese, and of the
Swedish missionaries and our own, and Mr. Bell led
the service at the grave, which was partly Chinese,
partly English. For a while we were afraid Andrew
might not get to the service, as there was a wounded
man who was bleeding badly, and we feared that he
could not be left, but he finally got the bleeding to stop
in time." (C. M. Y.). The little coffin being taken to
its resting place whilst not until the last moment was
it clear that the father might be able to be at the funeral
service, tells its own story of the strain under which
the hospital was working.

" I do wish it was possible for us to get another doctor
for the hospital here. We are in great need of help,
for the work is jar too much for one man. I wish it
were possible to concentrate as other missions have
done since the War broke out. It would seem better
to have less work well done than to try in vain to accom-
plish a great deal with too few workers." (C. M. Y.).

300 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

All through the spring the strain continued, and at
last in despair they telegraphed to the Society's Mission
in Shantung province for help. The appeal met with
a prompt and generous response. Dr. Jones, a new-
comer, was freed to come to Shensi. " He was splendid
as a colleague ; keen on both the medical and evangelistic
sides."

With all the strain of medical work, Andrew Young
never let go his deepest concern : that the hospital
should be a witness to the Great Physician. " The staff
(nurses and others), who come into most intimate touch
with the patients, seem more in earnest about things
than they have been, and begin to realize more that the
cure of souls is not simply something that we indulge
in in our spare moments, but the objective of all our
work."

A deputation from home arrived in November, 1919,
and it was decided, after careful consideration and
consultation, to close the San Yuan hospital for the
time being (as Dr. Charter was going home), and to
concentrate at Sianfu until the normal staff there could
be guaranteed. Dr. Jones had to escort this deputation
to Shantung where, in a remote station served by no
regular medical, a member of the Mission suffering from
typhoid detained him. As a consequence Young was
again alone for three weary months. All that year the
constant racing off to distant towns to attend upon
foreigners of various missions was a terrible drain, 1
whilst Dr. Jones, who returned from Shantung in March,
broke down badly under the incessant work carried on
amongst the wounded through the heat of the South
Shensi summer. He had to leave hurriedly with his
family in September, and Andrew Young held on as
1 See Chapter XII, p. 284.

IN THE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL 301

best he could. For three weeks in July there was cessa-
tion of fighting. Any civilian patients who could safely
be sent home left the hospital, whilst out-patient days
were suspended. The Youngs moved out to the East
Suburb, which was a shade cooler and at least more in
the open. And there, when every moment of those
three weeks should have been spent in rest, and at a
time when the sweat rolled off the writers on to any paper
they touched, he and his wife struggled day after day
with hospital accounts ! No kindlier, gentler souls ever
worked in the mission field, but even from them is wrung
the admission "the hospital accounts are intolerable".
With Stanley Jenkins, Cecil Robertson and Andrew
Young one has seen it : night after night when the body
craved sleep they toiled over accounts, reports and
estimates : and one finds it hard to speak moderately.
Certainly the word " intolerable " is sufficiently mild.

At last, in December of this year 1920, Dr. Broomhall,
who had generously volunteered his services for this
poor distracted province, arrived with his family. Illness
amongst his children had detained them at Shanghai,
and to the two Youngs, living upon their last reserves
of strength and devotion in Sianfu, " the last month (of
waiting) seemed endless." To them the sight of the
Broomhalls was as oasis water to the parched traveller
in the desert.

The new-comers reached Sianfu one day only before
the earthquake which devastated whole towns in Kansuh
Province to the north-west, and in Shensi took toll of
many lives, and did considerable damage to property
as far eastwards as Sianfu. The hospital buildings
rocked, and the two fathers and two mothers had to
race upstairs in the dark to the children in the upper
storey of the Youngs' house, taking them out into the

302 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

garden. No lives were lost in the hospital, though several
walls fell and one building was so shaken that it had
to be pulled down and rebuilt, whilst much roof repair
work was also necessary. With Dr. Broomhall there
had come to China Dr. and Mrs. Alec Lees, who, after
six months in the Peking Language School, went up to
Sianfu Hospital, whilst no less than three British nurses
joined its staff after their language course in Peking.

History is being made so rapidly in China in these
days that already a stirring story might be told of the
experiences of these later arrivals earthquakes, arsenal
explosions, bandit evasions, and other excitements.

But for Andrew Young another stage was now opened.
The base hospital was left well staffed, and with a great
future before it ; he himself went to a place which he
had started years before, to which he had often turned
longing eyes ; he came to San Yuan at last.

CHAPTER XIV
The Shining Year

A TITLE can never be more than an indication. If it
were the whole truth no detailed description under its
head would be necessary. It can, however, indicate an
outstanding quality.

In describing the last year of Andrew Young's life,
the word " shining " will not be denied. He had work
for which he was ideally suited, and for which he had
longed. Before winter set in his wife and children were
settled at San Yuan, and it seemed probable that there
need be no further separation. In July, 1921, he had
taken them to Kuling, and after a single full day in
Shanghai on hospital business he went up to Hwai Yuen,
in Anhui, where Mrs. Young's three sisters were stationed.
The fully-staffed work and the completeness of the plant
here appealed forcibly to the man who had been working
so long under the adverse conditions resulting from the
break-downs and deaths in Shensi, where the long lines
of communication both in his own and neighbouring
missions made the execution of plans so difficult, the
intrusion of the unexpected so frequent.

Year after year the Hwai Yuen missionaries had con-
centrated within their well-defined field, and cumulative
effects were now clearly visible. " They have a very
well-manned and womanned station, and well equipped,

303

304 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

too. There is a wonderful difference compared with
when we went there first twelve years ago. Their
women's hospital, of which Agnes (the doctor) and
Peggy (the nurse) have charge, is one of the finest I
have seen."

From Hwai Yuen he ran up north by rail to Tsinan in
Shantung for a day, after which, going south and west
upon the railway, he reached the rail-head for Shensi.
Here he and other missionaries found the country groaning
under fresh army movements.

For five years Governor Ch'en who had ousted Yuan
Shih-k'ai's nominee Lu 1 had maintained himself in
power, often by methods which pressed hard upon the
people. A new man was now being sent up to Sianfu
by the Government, and since he would probably have
"to fight for the crown", Feng Yu-hsiang, the famous
Christian General, was sent up with a large force to
assist him. To anticipate a little, one may add here that
Ch'en retreated steadily before this force, that the new
nominee was in power for a short time only, whereupon
the Central Government appointed General Feng as the
Tuchun (Military Governor) of the province. As a
result, Shensi knew its calmest time since the days when
Chang Feng-hui, the first republican governor, had had
the province in hand eight years previously.

For the missionaries who were waiting at the rail-head
in Honan province to proceed by cart or litter to their
stations in Shensi, this new movement meant that no
means of transport was visible ; such carts and animals
as had not been commandeered by the military were in
hiding twenty miles from the latter's camp. To this
hiding place the missionaries finally made their way.
They either walked or rode on donkeys animals which
1 See Chapter XIII, p. 298.

THE SHINING YEAR 305

the army would ignore till all the available horses and
mules had been seized. Reaching the carts they had
to push westwards at speed to keep ahead of the
army, which, upon its arrival, would fill all inns and
empty all food-shops. Travellers in China have no
illusions left as to the romance of war; they are too
bitterly conscious of its sordid dislocation of normal
activities.

Of Feng Yu-hsiang's army so much has been written
that Andrew Young's grateful tribute to its orderliness
is not quoted here, but one passage ought not to be
omitted in view of doubts sometimes expressed as to
the spontaneity of the Christianity professed. " I
think nearly all the officers of his army are Christians ;
not just following his example but convicted and con-
verted by the Spirit of God . Each maj or conducts a Bible
class with the three hundred soldiers under him. ...
Not long ago, on one Sunday, no less than nine hundred
of the men were baptized after a very searching test as
to the genuineness of their faith. ... I do trust that
during the stay here of these soldiers the movement will
spread outside, and result in many genuine converts
being gathered in." Whatever may be the future of
Feng Yu-hsiang or his troops when increased numbers
within the army and the complications of Peking politics
without it, may have brought modifications, and it may
be corruptions, one looks back with gratitude to the
influence of that army of Puritan Ironsides in Shensi,
in the years 1921-1922.

Arrived at San Yuan, Young and his evangelistic
colleague, Mr. Watson, took up the necessary building
extensions and repairs vigorously. These completed,
the hospital accommodated fifty-six patients. A quick
run down to Ruling in late September, over the now

U

306 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

well-policed roads of Shensi and Honan, enabled him to
bring his family up comfortably and without incident by
October. It was on this trip that their cook feelingly
remarked that in all the years in which he had travelled
with the Youngs this was the first time they had had
a journey free from some catastrophe.

The new hospital from the first felt the impact of
Andrew Young's master passion. " We want more con-
viction of sin and real anxiety about their souls and the
souls of others, amongst the members of the staff." His
aim was to have every worker in the hospital coolies,
cooks, nurses and others members of the church, for
whom each day's work was service rendered to their
Saviour. " Young could never take work lightly. The
poor, the needy, especially little sick children, drained
him of his sympathy and power; as with his Master,
virtue was going forth from him all the time." 1

San Yuan was not heaven. There was not only the
provincial jealousy amongst members of the staff who
were Shensi men and those whose family home was still
considered to be in Shantung ; there was jealousy also
between those who had lived in San Yuan and those who
hailed from Sianfu across the river. Constant watchful-
ness was needed lest loose habits to which incoming
patients were addicted gambling, opium, loose speech
should be condoned or participated in by the staff. There
were professional anxieties also ; the question of relief
to be granted to beggars who might be really destitute
or merely members of a well-to-do guild ; there was help
to be given to destitute Russians who were making their
way from far-off Turkestan to the China coast, and
whose bona fides missionaries in Shensi could not pretend
to investigate, but whose immediate sorry plight was
1 Letter from John Bell.

THE SHINING YEAR 307

beyond question. But all these difficulties were within
manageable dimensions. The doctor could deal with
them, could overtake his professional duties, and yet
have time to mingle with patients and workers, to bless
them with his individual witness, to bear them upon his
.heart in prayer, Even the sudden and utterly un-
reasonable outburst of anti-foreign feeling which swept
Shensi like a wave that Christmastide could not disturb
the glow of satisfaction he felt. This anti-foreign out-
burst was a by-product of the Washington Conference,
a political event for which China should have given thanks
fasting, and which to-day she probably realizes gave
her one of the best opportunities of putting her house
in order that has come her way. Yet so extravagant
had been her hopes that at the moment she thanklessly
ignored the great and substantial benefits received,
fastening instead upon grievances which were largely
academic. A very minor matter of discipline in the
Mission's Middle School at Sianfu was seized upon by
the professional agitators who prey upon the Students'
Union an Association which, in spite of certain crudities
and irritating assumptions, has in past days done good
work in China and made the occasion of an atrocious
campaign of libel and intimidation. The local authorities
in San Yuan had to beg all foreigners to keep within
doors until the wave of feeling had spent itself. The
hospital, being outside San Yuan city walls, cut off from
the rest of the Mission, was for a time in real danger,
since at such a time memories of past benefits received
were apt to be lost in the general rush of anti-foreign
hatred.

As Mrs. Young puts it in her letters : " The people
here feel that the Washington Conference has not given
them a square deal. They don't know what they want ;

308 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

but they feel that they are not getting it, anyhow."
This ill feeling passed, however, as fuller details of Washing-
ton's solid gains were published, and the neighbourhood
settled down to its normal friendliness.

Young's medical colleague was Dr. Li Jen, whose
work had always been painstaking and whose influence
in the San Yuan hospital was all for good. In this
volume difficulties connected with the young Chinese
medical profession have been referred to frankly ; here
one can speak unreservedly of its triumphs. All through
this San Yuan period Dr. Li worked with Andrew Young,
who never ceased to speak highly of him. Since Andrew
Young's death Dr. Li has worked on alone, and has
faithfully tried to carry out his former chief's ideas not
only on the medical side but in caring for the spiritual
welfare of the staff and patients. He has had lantern
lectures, Bible classes, reading classes, as well as the
daily morning and evening worship. Dr. Li would have
been a valuable member of the Christian community in
any walk of life owing to his gifts of character, but in
such a situation as that in which he found himself at
San Yuan he was invaluable. The outstanding difference
between him and the other medical graduates in the
provinces was his sense of responsibility. This brings
up the question of the age at which a Chinese Christian
who is assisted by the Church to a medical career should
take up his professional training. Owing to the many
years which such training requires, boys generally pro-
ceed directly from the Middle School to the Pre-Medical
Department of the University. This means that when
they graduate their knowledge of life is that gained by
the student only. From childhood their world has been
that of home and school and college. Dr. Li had had

THE SHINING YEAR 309

the benefit of a varied experience, and several years'
work as assistant in a hospital, before he took his medical
training. His character had been tested. The showy
career open to a Western-trained doctor in the Chinese
army ; the lucrative private practice where scruples are
not allowed to interfere with profit-~neither of these
deflected him from the path he had marked out.

So the work progressed. There were still stony places
upon the way, but they were never more than could be
crushed and used to form a firmer and better surface, so
that those following in the footsteps of this group of
workers should find a road where once there had been
only a wilderness.

Yet, happy as they were, one cloud gathered volume
as the months passed. Andrew Young's store of energy
had run dangerously low, whilst he was as far as ever
from sparing himself. " If a person is ill," said his
Chinese friends, " it seems as though he takes the illness
upon himself." The burden of his spiritual message
grew heavier also, its urgency more insistent. " He
speaks as though his heart were almost too full for
speech, so earnest is he in all he says," was their comment
on his appearance at the last United Church meetings
which he attended, " I shall be glad," wrote his wife
in January, 1922, " to get Andrew home on furlough,
for he does need a rest and change. He has had much
responsibility and hard work these many years. ... I
do hope he will have a real rest without the burden of
deputation speaking. ..."

But it was not to be.

There was a better rest than furlough in store. The
gipsying days were closing, the sojourner and pilgrim
was to find the path across the Delectable Mountains at
last ; he who had for so many years been making the

310 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

best of temporary expedients was to have put into his
hands a work where perfect means of accomplishment
accompanied every task which Divine love should
appoint ; he who had so long adapted himself to circum-
stances was now at length so moulded and fashioned
that he was ready for that blessed state where there is
perfect correspondence between the individual soul and
the world in which it is set.

Did a smile lurk behind the kindly, patient brown
eyes when " Mr. Glory Tai-fu " recognised the disease
which had seized him ? So often had he fought it
across the bodies of others that it seemed almost to
wear the face of a friend at last. Typhus might be
a dread enemy to the many, but for Cecil Robertson,
Stanley Jenkins and Andrew Young it was, after all,
only a messenger. " He maketh His ministers a flame
of fire." Over the body of this beloved physician, as
over many a patient of his before, the battle was waged,
and this time with better human hopes. Never before
had Shensi had two British doctors and four British
nurses available for one patient. Almost to the end it
seemed as if skill and devotion would prevail to keep
this servant of Jesus with us, but the patient's powers
of resistance had been lowered by years of persistent
overwork, and the final onslaught of the fever prevailed.

To use a language which for years had been as the
native speech of Andrew Young, the time of his reward
was at hand. He had kept the faith, he had finished
the course ; the Crown that had been set aside for him
was waiting to be revealed at last, when he should go
to be with the Christ Whom having not seen he had
loved so long.

The end here came on the twenty-ninth day of April,

THE SHINING YEAR 311

1922. The Chinese, for whom he had laboured so un-
tiringly, were not slow to do him honour. The united
Church and the poor torn State were present at his
funeral. The sorrow of the many poor for whom he had
toiled in such kindliness was the laurel of his wreath.
By the Shensi Mission, by the Society at home, by his
friends in four continents, the departing which was gain
for him was counted as sore loss.

On May Day, 1922, we in Peking received Mudd's wire :
" Sent off cable last night regret notify Young deceased,
typhus."

A flimsy sheet with a sinister scrawl for us who read.
And yet and yet it was in truth May Day. "Mr.
Glory Tai-fu " was where " Glory, glory dwelleth " at
last ; he had entered through the Gates into the City.

Whatever else may be connoted by the picture of the
saints in that City casting down their crowns and crying
" Hallelujah to the Lamb," the picture at least includes
the idea of the joyous believer making known to all
within hearing the glories of the Lamb who is worthy
to receive honour and dominion and power. . . . Some-
thing of this Andrew Young had been able to accomplish
in his Congo and Chinese ministry. By word and pen and
the instruments of his surgeon's craft he had made known
the glories of the Lamb who was slain. In the Better
Land the passion of the life lived here would be still his
main activity.

For his life was in reality singularly simple, dominated
by a purpose which drew the many varying threads into
a pattern easily discerned. The army of his being
marched quietly, steadily, irresistibly forward to its
purpose. In spite of all that was adventurous in its
setting and in its incident, his life's main claim to dis-
tinction lay in its preserved orderliness. " Let nothing

312 ANDREW YOUNG OF SHENSI

be lost " might have been written as a command across
its length and breadth. No distraction of earthly
ambition impaired his service; no unworthy or un-
balanced affection weakened his strength of purpose,
He had dedicated himself to Christ's service as a boy,
and that service was his guide and guerdon all his days.
Very early he had arrived at a sense of values, which he
never lost. " The lust of the eyes and the pride of
life" were, he believed, only, " of the world which
passeth away," they were not "of the Father", so he
ruled them out of his reckoning. Permanent satisfaction
could be looked for only in one way : "he that doeth
the will of God abideth for ever " ; and to the doing of
that will he dedicated his life, and so attained to freedom.
Where others were at the mercy of self-importance,
the desire for recognition, the hope of fame, the love of
place, Andrew Young walked unimpeded, undisturbed and
serene. He had entered into the largest place ; he
was of those who knew by experience that Jesus' purpose
in coming to earth was that we might have life and
might have it abundantly ; he knew that for him the
abiding life was indeed for ever. In a very real sense
Andrew Young's life is a rallying call to the ordinary
believer, since its glory lay not in the unusual difficulties
which he surmounted, but in the use which he made
of the ordinary equipment which Jesus gives to those
who trust and love Him. The urmsual and the spectacular
that are found in this record are but the outer husk,
and were regarded as such by its subject ; the inspiration
which his life has for us lies in the fact that his gifts
were not such as would place him hopelessly beyond
our reach, whilst the graces of character that proclaimed
him an elect soul to the discerning were arrived at by
means which are available for every Christian believer ;

THE SHINING YEAR 313

he believed the Promise of God, he laid hold of the Word
of Life, he worked Word and Promise into his daily
plan and practice until slowly, unconsciously and surely,
he was changed, and men took note of him that he had
been with Jesus.

The wife who understands is with their children in
the old, old border town, in Langholm, where the young
lives grow into strength and knowledge as their father's
grew before them. Their mother is not widowed, nor
is she desolate. To use the old brave army term, she
is "carrying-on". For her is reserved the double duty ;
she is father and mother too ; she is putting into practice
those joint ideas which were Andrew's and hers in the
Shensi years. She is not morbidly desirous of silence.
" I wonder why people think I do not want to talk
about Andrew. He is the one subject I do want to
talk about." And surely she is right. So lovely a life
can be dwelt upon long without pain or morbidity.
It is well to linger over the lessons that this brave,
strong soldier of Jesus Christ can teach, and for her
Andrew is as real as ever; "Saint Andrew," yes,
but most surely " Andrew " still. And meantime life
is as much as ever the opportunity, the interesting
training ground. And Andrew, who has gone on ahead,
who knows the turn of the road, who believes that she
and the little ones will also find the way Andrew waits.

FINIS

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